By now, you've seen the fancy new rating icons popping up to officially advise us that our favorite TV shows are bonafide sleaze. These little ratings doodads - born on New Year's Day and known by the names TV-Y, TV-Y-7, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, and TV-M - appear to be the love children of concerned parents of America and a broad industry effort to protect children - with our maternal government for a Godmother.
This is what the politicians and broadcasters - dizzy in their symbiotic stupor - want you to see.
But don't be fooled. This congenial, historic, children-loving, morally upright so-called consensus is at best a valiant effort at compromise that could easily unravel. Why? Because in fact, the parental and public-interest groups that first put broadcasters in the political death-lock until they cried "uncle" actually hate the new system. Only in Washington would they call this a consensus.
The only reason broadcasters, producers, cable-TV operators, and various Hollywood power brokers did anything was because lawmakers made them. What's that? You thought it was a voluntary system? Well, in Washington, "voluntary" means, "Do something that looks good to the electorate or - damn the First Amendment - we'll make you do it." And so this entire issue has more to do with throwing a bone to Congress and the Clinton administration than with rating television programs.
The industry standpoint, as articulated by a spokesman at the National Association of Broadcasters, is that TV networks crank out 2,000 hours of programming per day, so ratings have to be simple. Parents groups, however, want each show to be labeled with specific information on sexual content, violence, and profanity.
As it stands, the new ratings system is simple. It's modeled after the familiar movie industry system. In fact, Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America and the architect of the 30-year-old movie ratings system, heads the TV ratings group. And our friend Jack has already laid down the law: The ratings won't change despite what whiny parents groups and others say.
The TV folks are adamant for one reason, and that's cost. Rating programs is expensive. "We think [adding more detail to the ratings] is impractical," the NAB spokesman said. "The whole point was make this easy to use."
The Newspaper Association of America wrote Valenti that "brevity and simplicity will tend to promote printing in newspapers." Washingtonian translation: Buckle to the parents groups, and you can forget about seeing your shows listed in the Sunday paper.
In fact, the NAB spokesman said TV Guide even worries about the simple system now in place because printing the ratings symbols adds roughly eight pages to each issue. Can you imagine how much noise TV Guide would make if it had to list drawn-out descriptions of sex and violence? And since TV Guide is owned by News Corp., which runs the Fox Broadcasting Network, the combined interest of the powerful network and the most widely read publication in America starts to look rather leviathan. Amazingly incestuous business, eh?
And so this wonderful industry consensus you've been hearing about is far from perfect. Even President Clinton refused to do any cheerleading when the system came out, telling reporters at the White House that it seemed OK but he wasn't so sure it's the best system. Not a good sign for an industry trying to avoid government intervention.
And that's where the ratings system starts to teeter on the edge of collapse. The whole scheme was born in Washington, where consumer-hawk Representative Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) has based his entire political existence on trying to be the second coming of Ralph Nader (Markey was the one who coaxed the rate-shaving 1992 Cable Act through Congress).
Not surprisingly, Markey's not altogether thrilled with the industry-pleasing new ratings system. Lamented one broadcast industry source who wisely requested anonymity: "If Ed Markey's involved, you can bet this issue's not going away."
Well, Markey just got back to town for the start of the 105th Congress, and he'll be the one whom detractors of the new system corner in the hallway to harangue into action. The TV industry is no lobbying slouch and will put up a good fight. But what liberal Democrat wants to come off as pro-business and anti-parents?
Markey is only one liberal guy in a Republican-controlled House, but he's loud as hell. Expect a nice bit of vitriol on C-SPAN (where the gratuitous rambling of Congress, by the way, won't be rated to protect children. Go figure).
Meanwhile, over in the Senate, John McCain (R-Arizona) recently revealed that he'll hold hearings on the TV ratings issue in the Commerce Committee, over which he took chairmanship this session. He's no slouch when it comes to holding television's feet to the fire. McCain's still wants to auction off the new digital TV spectrum rather than let broadcasters trade it for their old analog slots for free.
The bottom line: The TV ratings system is far from being here to stay. Everything from this point on will depend on which side lobbies the loudest and the best. In the end, this whole mess could end up languishing in the courts. Broadcasters already have said they'll sue the government if it mandates a new ratings system. In the mean time, maybe we should just all read a book or two.
