FEW FAVOR CHANGES IN TV RATINGS

A Wednesday night meeting resulted in the addition of program content indicators to the 6-month-old television ratings system, but neither opponents nor supporters are jumping for joy over the new symbols.

The revamped list of content-based indicators are set to join existing age-based indicators by Oct. 1. The new system was developed to give parents a more detailed guide for shielding children from potentially offensive programming. The letters V, S, L and D will be used to signal programs that contain violence, sex, vulgar language and suggestive dialogue, respectively.

In return for the industry's cooperation, lawmakers made a "gentleman's agreement" that bans any congressional legislation on the revised system for three years.

While advocacy groups and some lawmakers are declaring the agreement a victory for parents wanting better information about programming, some people believe the new system doesn't provide enough information.

"I certainly do not share Washington's instant enthusiasm for the new rating system offered after closed-door discussions with Hollywood and the television networks," U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., said in a press release Thursday. "This new system is a step forward toward a rating system for content, but it doesn't do the job. Parents deserve better information about programs their children may watch, and the networks ought to deliver it."

Ashcroft said the new indicators are incomplete because they don't tell families how much sex, coarse language or violence a program contains. "The new system extends the arrogance of its predecessor," he said, by assigning age ratings to programs."

CBS, ABC, FOX and some other cable networks agreed to support the new content indicators. NBC didn't agree to the changes, citing government involvement in a private, decision-making process.

Howard Meagle, vice president and general manager of CBS-affiliate KFVS-12, said he agrees with NBC's reasoning. It basically amounts to "government intrusion" into the industry, he said, and is ruining what should have been a simple instrument to provide information to parents.

"It seems that the furor is mostly advocacy group-oriented and political tag-along," he said. "I've been against a rating system since the very beginning. We're doing everything we can to get more information to our viewers. All they have to do is watch it once to know what it is."

Michael Maguire, chairman of the Cape Girardeau Cable Television Citizens Committee, said he, too, disagrees with Ashcroft about the need for more detailed content indicators. The government should not try to shape content, he said, and should maintain only an advisory position in this situation. Government regulation could over-complicate the system and make something that's supposed to be informative into something that's very confusing, he said.

"If what you're wanting to do is fairly apprise people of what's going on, that's fine," Maguire said. "It seems to me that all we're really trying to do is alert people that there's going to be something with that content in it. But at some point you've got to trust that people who are watching can make a decision."

Maguire said it would be nearly impossible to give enough detailed information about content because television viewers rarely watch one program in its entirety. "You've got to give them the information fairly quickly and let them make the decision," he said. "In this age of channel surfers, it would be ludicrous to believe that people would sit there and take all of that in."

Meagle and Ashcroft said it will take months before the effects of the content indicators can be seen. The original system was only given six months before changes were made, and it will be at least that long before the new system is truly indicated, they said.