Getting nowhere with ratings

If you pay attention to the TV ratings and use them to determine what your children watch, raise your hand. Higher, please.

I don't see many arms in the air.

Those little "TVGs" and TVMs" in the corner of the screen aren't really doing much good, according to surveys of parents. That's not really a surprise to me. When they were announced a few months ago, most observers, including me, pointed out the major flaws with the system:

* TV producers were rating themselves, lessening the possibility of the guidance being very informative or honest;

* The ratings appear so fleetingly on the screen that it is difficult to flip from channel to channel and find out what's best for kids;

* The symbols, combinations of letters and numbers, don't make much sense unless you carry an abacus, slide rule and thesaurus with you at all times to figure them out. By the time you do, the show is over.

At recent hearings in Washington, critics of the rating system demonstrated how many holes are in it by playing a videotape showing what passes as programming suitable for young teens. The problem can be summed up much more simply by noting that NBC, without the slightest trace of embarrassment or shame, broadcasts "Friends" at 8 p.m. in the East and Far West, and 7 in the Midwest, hours usually devoted to family viewing.

The biggest problem still remains the most obvious one: What good is a rating system that is administered by the very people who make the product? If a meat-packer could stamp Grade A on rotten beef and call it a fair rating system, would you eagerly bite into his steaks? If a drug manufacturer could bottle poison while labeling it "Good For What Ails You," would you slide a teaspoonful down your gullet?

But many TV viewers eagerly swallow other kinds of rotten material and poisonous products just because the producers call it "Swell For The Whole Family." (Or "TVj#5*" or some rating like that.)

So what viable options do concerned parents have if they want to guard their children from televised junk? Here are six steps that can help out, including:

1. Reading this newspaper, which carries this excellent (self-labeled) TV column about what's worth seeing and what should be avoided;

2. Taping programs and then previewing them before the kids watch to make sure they really are appropriate for your little ones;

3. Limiting the number of hours children can spend slumped in front of the TV in a week so that less garbage goes into their developing minds;

4. Talking about shows as a family in order to discuss their content, positive and negative;

5. Filling out the proper forms to obtain library cards so that everyone in the home gets into the habit of reading.

6. Putting aside both the TV and books in order to take up family prayer as a regular part of your home life.

Those half-dozen ideas are simple to carry out, and the best part is this: No abacus is required.

(04-03-97)

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