ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 6, 1997 TAG: 9703060041
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
TV's new parental guidance rating system has been in place for only two months, yet it's already being trashed left and right as a failure if not an outright monstrosity.
Most of the trashing is going on in Washington, however, by members of Congress and special-interest groups. There's good reason to wonder if the public at large shares this instant outrage.
The rating symbols appear now in the upper left-hand corner at the beginning of most entertainment programs. G means suitable for general audiences, TV-PG means parental guidance is suggested, TV-14 means parents of children under that age should take special note, and TV-M means the program is for mature audiences only.
So far the only prime-time program rated TV-M was NBC's telecast of the movie ``Schindler's List'' which, in depicting atrocities committed by the Nazis, included scenes of nudity and horribly realistic violence.
One nutty congressman from Oklahoma attacked the telecast and said the film should ``never have been shown'' on TV, whether it was an accurate depiction of the horrors of the Holocaust or not. He was widely criticized for his remarks even by members of his own party and soon apologized.
But there was a great deal more criticism of the rating system from Congress a few days later, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., convened a session of his Commerce Committee, the sole purpose of which appeared to be to whomp the living daylights out of the ratings. Other senators and a few invited members of the House chimed in, and leaders of advocacy groups took turns saying the system is horrible and useless - partly because the TV industry didn't fashion it precisely along the lines that the groups wanted.
The basic disagreement is this: As the system now stands it rates programs according to their appropriateness for age groups. The critics and complainers want a ``content-based'' system that would spell out, at the beginning of each show, why it got the rating it did.
This kind of service is already being offered on HBO and Showtime, both pay cable networks. The rating is shown on the screen followed by a little checklist of what's in the movie: BN for Brief Nudity, V for Violence, R for Rape, and so on.
Critics of the network system want an S for Sex, a V for Violence and an L for Language posted at the start of each show in addition to the ratings.
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the man who shepherded the new system into existence, says content symbols won't work in TV. He offers the example of using an S for sexual content. Some episodes of the wholesome and family friendly ``Touched by an Angel'' might include an amorous scene or two and thus qualify for the S, he says, and yet the same S would appear at the beginning of a sexy movie like ``Natural Born Killers'' when it's shown on network TV.
A V for violence might precede both a Bugs Bunny cartoon and an episode of ``NYPD Blue.'' Besides, the ratings are designed to work with the new V-chip, to be installed in new TV sets starting next year. That chip will enable parents to program a TV to black out all shows beyond a certain rating - say, everything TV-PG or above.
But if the content advisory is added, Valenti says, ``the only way a parent will know what's in it is to watch the beginning of every show. Our system is designed to be simple and not require that parents be there.'' Valenti also says that an early poll by the Pew organization shows that 79 percent of parents with children under 13 already find the TV rating system ``useful'' or ``very useful.'' There are bound to be other polls, perhaps with other results.
As a compromise to the critics, Valenti says he will try to talk the networks into displaying the rating symbol for 30 seconds at the beginning of each show rather than the current 15 seconds.
Will that silence the opposition? Good grief, no. They smell blood. Those hearings were a field day for critics of the new system - just the opening guns in a long running battle ahead.
- Washington Post Writers Group
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB