‘Family Hour’ Plan A Victim Of Ratings Deal 4 Lawmakers Want Lurid Shows Removed From Air, Not Just Rated

New detailed TV ratings are in the headlines, but four members of Congress contend that such on-screen warnings do nothing to fix what’s really wrong with television: the shows are offensive.

The lawmakers - Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Joe Kennedy, D-Mass. - are pushing legislation to require that early-evening television programs be free of sexual innuendo, expletives or sly euphemisms for crude language.

But a deal other lawmakers made with the TV industry may prevent the bills from going anywhere.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and seven other senators promised industry leaders they would oppose, among other things, legislation aimed at creating a “family viewing hour.” The assurance, similar to ones made by key House members, was in exchange for the industry’s agreement to adopt stronger voluntary program ratings.

That agreement bodes ill for the new “family viewing” proposals, which would grant television networks a limited exemption from antitrust laws and allow them to reinstate voluntary programming standards.

Television networks followed a self-imposed set of standards until a federal court ruled in 1982 that provisions restricting sale of advertising violated antitrust rules. The broadcasters’ group threw out the entire code in January 1983 on the ground that it made broadcasters vulnerable to antitrust lawsuits.

Since the demise of the code, some conservative groups say, the time slot once known as “family hour” has turned into the cringe hour.

Despite the popularity of family-friendly shows like “Touched by an Angel,” children are deluged between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. by “filthy language, sexual innuendo and perverse story lines,” the Parents Television Council and the conservative Media Research Center said in a study released in May.

It examined 93 hours of programs from Jan. 30 to Feb. 26. Obscenities were uttered at an average rate of just under one an hour, and there were 60 references to sexual intercourse - one every 1-1/2 hours.