V-Chip Trouble     8/1/2001 V-Chip Trouble By Martha Kleder The Kaiser Family Foundation says that only 7 percent of U.S. parents own a V-Chip — and that only 17 percent of those are using it to block television content too sexual or violent for their children. The report was released July 24, the same week in which the U.S. Senate held a hearing on the issue of the media’s impact on young people. “A year and a half after its introduction,” said Drew Altman, Ph.D., president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, in the foundation’s press release, “the V-Chip is being used by a small minority of parents; TV ratings are more of a mainstream resource for concerned moms and dads.” The survey found that 53 percent of parents who purchased TVs after the V-Chips were mandated even know they have one. Of those who do, only one in three has programmed it to block shows they don’t want their children watching. “Sixty-four percent have not used it,” said Altman. The report is no surprise to family-friendly media watchdogs. “It should come as no surprise that so few families utilize the V-Chip,” said Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media. “Most homes don’t have a TV with the V-Chip, and in many homes that do, not all TVs in the home have the chip.” Peters says the chips are also complex and many parents don’t have the patience or knowledge to figure out, not so much the technology itself, but the ratings system on which it operates. The Federal Communications Commission ruled that half of all new televisions 13 inches or larger sold after July 1, 1999, should contain the chip. All sets 13 inches or larger sold after January 1, 2000, contain the chip. The V-Chip works in conjunction with the TV Parental Guidelines rating system established by the industry. Those ratings appear on the screen for 15 seconds at the start of each broadcast and cable show. Rather than the simple G, PG, and R movie ratings most of today’s parents grew up with, the television guidelines are complex. The ratings range from TV-Y, shows appropriate for even the youngest of children, to TV-Y7 for older children. TV-PG, TV-14 and TV-MA are all accompanied by symbols specifying the content of the show: “V” for violence, “S” for sexual content, “L” for dirty words, and “D” for suggestive dialogue. Even those designations have different meanings depending on which rating level they refer to. The V-Chip can then be programmed to block specific types of inappropriate content or material above the age-appropriate level. However, Peters says the V-chip is only as good as the rating system it works with. “In order to block the many offensive programs rated TV-PG, parents must block all TV programming rated TV-PG,” said Peters. “The same holds true for TV-14. If they block all TV-PG and TV-14 programming, they or their children will have little to watch.” That’s because of “ratings creep,” a problem where the shows producers — the ones responsible for setting the ratings for the shows — label more and more sexual and violent content as appropriate for family viewing. No outside interests or third parties oversee the application of the ratings system. “Many parents don’t trust ratings provided by the same TV executives who proudly produce the morally offensive programming and who often rate programs with the interests of sponsors, rather than of children, in mind,” said Peters.