TV Rating System Still Raising Questions
If David Letterman is TV-PG, how come Jay Leno is TV-14? Television executives say it will take time to shake out all the bugs in the new system that rates TV programs for the sex, violence and foul language they present.
CBS, for example, has been rating “Late Night With David Letterman” as a TV-PG show, meaning “parental guidance suggested.” But NBC thinks Letterman’s archrival, “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” deserves the more restrictive TV-14, for programs “many parents would find unsuitable for children under 14.” (The rating is displayed in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen at the start of the show.)
Even before it was introduced on New Year’s Day, the system was dogged by controversy. Parents, politicians and educators have complained repeatedly that the six categories devised by an industry committee - ranging from TV-G for general audiences to TV-M for mature audiences - are too vague. They have demanded ratings that designate specific levels of violence, sexual themes or rough talk.
While that debate continues, the inconsistencies in the ratings raise a new question: Can viewers trust the system?
Leno’s rating, for example, seems to suggest that “The Tonight Show” is a lot naughtier than “Late Night.” NBC, meanwhile, deems “Friends,” its blockbuster sitcom about six young, hormonally charged characters, a TV-PG program. That makes “Friends,” at least in NBC’s eyes, more suitable family fare than, say, “Cybill,” a saucy sitcom CBS has been tagging with a TV-14.
“This is totally new, and most people have never had to make these decisions before,” said Decker Anstrom, who heads the National Cable Television Association, one of the three trade organizations that developed the ratings. The inconsistencies, he said, “will work themselves out over time.”
But some critics say inconsistencies are inevitable because of sketchiness in the criteria used to determine each rating.
“It’s hard to get consistency when you don’t have much detail in the guidelines,” said Dale Kunkel, a communications professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
According to the industry’s brief guidelines, a TV-PG program contains “infrequent coarse language, limited violence, some suggestive dialogue and situations.” A program rated TV-14 “may contain sophisticated themes, sexual content, strong language and more intense violence.”
Even some senior TV executives concede the distinctions are hard to make. “When (the guidelines) say ‘some sexual content,’ what does that mean?” said Jamie Kellner, chief executive of the WB network.
WB has been giving “Savannah,” a racy prime-time soap produced by Aaron Spelling, a TV-PG rating. Yet Fox is rating “Melrose Place” - its racy prime-time soap produced by Aaron Spelling - TV-14. Kellner said some future episodes of “Savannah” could get the TV-14 rating.
Because the system is intended to reflect the content of each episode, changes can be made from week to week. This month, for example, NBC will give a TV-PG rating to two episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Street”; two other episodes will come in at TV-14, said Rosalyn Weinman, the executive in charge of NBC’s program standards.
As for the late-night ratings, Weinman said NBC gave “The Tonight Show” its TV-14 rating because of the program’s late-night time slot and its “level of unpredictability” and because commercials for R-rated movies often air during the show. “Our thinking was, this was never a program designed for a preteen audience,” she said.
Yet those same factors could also describe Letterman’s show. “We looked at Letterman, and we thought the most appropriate rating, night in and night out, is a PG,” said Martin Franks, a senior vice president at CBS. “Maybe on a night when Madonna needs to more fully express herself with some colorful language, or Drew Barrymore decides to flash Dave, we’ll have a different rating.”