Television Ratings – Are They Necessary and Valuable?

On January 1, 1997 a new set of television standards was introduced to the public, TV Parental Guidelines. (1) While these ratings do not completely prevent a child from watching something outside their maturity level, it does help parents to know and understand what their children are watching. The “TV Parental Guidelines” were set up so that every series could be rated by the content it showed its audience. The ratings available can be seen on several websites and in many books, but the most common is www.tvguidelines.org. (2)

While most television shows still display the same content that they would have without their ratings, people can now understand what type of show they are watching based on its rating. For example, TV-MA (V, S, L) would mean that the show is for mature audiences over seventeen and contains violence, sexual activity and crude language. (3) This does not mean that parents can spend less time watching their children’s television habits, but it does give them a spotlight on what shows could be inappropriate for them to view.

Yet another issue with the Parental Guidelines is whether or not they work. According to the Parents Television Council, they do not. The president of PTC, L. Brent Bozell, says “Our findings show the blatant hypocrisy of TV executives who claim that parents should rely on TV ratings… Most television programs showing foul language, violence, and inappropriate sexual dialogue or situations do not use the appropriate content descriptors that would warn parents about the presence of offensive content.” (4) Many other organizations and parents agree. While having a rating system at all is a big step towards corporation responsibility, there is still so much more that needs to be done.

An alternative to the ratings system is for the parents to view the shows that their children watch, or are likely to watch, before they do. By viewing a few episodes, one can get a general idea of what their child will be seeing in subsequent episodes. This may not seem like a difficult job, but too few parents take the time to do this. Yes, most parents are very busy, with approximately 28% of children living in single parent homes, but I don’t believe that anyone should be allowed to complain about what others are putting on television if they don’t take the time to evaluate the shows themselves. If a parent is too busy to pay attention to what their children are even watching in the first place, then it doesn’t matter what the ratings are, their children will find a way to watch them regardless.

This brings me to public responsibility. Many will ask what the ratings do for the common person, what if you don’t have kids, or you don’t really care about the ratings on the shows? How does this affect you then? Well, if parents keep harassing the media to “watch what they say”, so to speak, then pretty soon everything will be censored. I am not saying that parents don’t have the right to have their children protected from the violence, sexuality and language that TV does seem to glorify, but they don’t have the right to stop what everyone else is viewing. If the public doesn’t find a happy medium well, one side will win. Censorship or complete chaos, what do you want?

(1) The Wikipedia Encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_rating_system
(2) TV Parental Guidelines www.tvguidelines.org
(3) The V-Chip Education Project www.ncta.com/images/VChip%202000%20Brochure.pdf
(4) Parents Television Council Publications www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/NewsRelease
(5) Health E-Notes health.enotes.com/childrens-health-encyclopedia/single-parent-families