Interest Revived in Technology That Blocks Profanity on TV : Telecom: The political scramble to control sex and violence has brought the V-chip back into the public eye.

Mounting public concern over TV sex and violence--underscored in a speech Monday by President Clinton and by passage of Senate legislation to control TV sex and violence--has suddenly revived interest in a technology that would allow parents to electronically block offensive programming from their living rooms.

Though the technology, known as the V-chip, has been around since at least the late 1980s, it was never able to muster much consumer interest or political momentum until last month, after Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) lashed out at Hollywood in a Los Angeles speech, saying too many films, television shows and records promote sex and violence.

Dole’s remarks touched off a public outcry as well as an unusual alliance among liberal Democrats and Republican conservatives who both scrambled to embrace the V-chip.

Although Dole himself opposed legislation that would require the television industry to develop a ratings system and the V-chip, the Senate last month approved such a measure as part of a sweeping telecommunications reform bill. Since then, the V-chip has become a central part of the debate over sex and violence on television.

Speaking Monday at a conference on entertainment media and family values, Clinton said he believes violence and other offensive content on television can be brought under control through a combination of voluntary industry restraints and electronic measures such as the V-chip.

The sudden prominence of the V-chip in the political debate has alarmed Hollywood and television manufacturers, who have long opposed the technology.

“We can all support the goal embraced by the President today,” the CBS network said in a statement. “However, CBS must oppose the government mandated means he endorses. The marketplace is already producing other viewer blocking technologies which empower parents to control their children’s TV viewing without damaging the Constitution.”

Relatively inexpensive and easy to utilize, the V-chip blocks programming by using the same circuitry that allows TVs to decode closed-captioned information. Parents would block out objectionable shows in much the same way they program their VCRs to record programs.

The codes they punch into their remote controls would interact with the so-called “vertical blanking interval”--the black strips that separate each frame of video and are now also used to transmit closed-captioned information to deaf viewers.

Supporters say incorporating the V-chip into television sets would add about $5 to the cost of each TV set. But the Electronic Industries Assn., a Washington-based trade group, said the cost could be as high as $50 more.

The technology is expected to take center stage Wednesday on Capitol Hill as the Senate Commerce Committee opens hearings on measures intended to curb indecency on television. It will also be on lawmakers’ agendas later this month when Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) will attempt to introduce a measure calling for the V-chip when the House votes on its telecommunications reform bill.

Since 1990, Markey has championed the V-chip as a way for parents to control objectionable TV programming.

In response to pressure from Congress, the networks in June, 1993, adopted a “parental advisory” to warn viewers of objectionable programming. But only two regularly scheduled network television shows, ABC’s “NYPD Blue” and CBS’ “Walker, Texas Ranger,” have sported the warning label. Most non-network programming, such as syndicated talk and tabloid shows, do not air such warnings.

Similarly, while television manufacturers have studied ways to help viewers block objectionable programming, they have resisted adopting any formal system for doing so.

“We don’t like to have our hands tied by any mandatory regulation” to install a V-chip, said Wayne Luplow, vice president of consumer electronics engineering for Zenith. “We prefer to respond to the needs of our customers. The best way to do that is to let us go forward without letting us have any mandatory requirements.”

Luplow said he will be demonstrating such technology at Wednesday’s Senate hearing.

Some critics of the V-chip think lawmakers would be well advised to wait for other technology to mature.

“If we don’t rush to judgment on this issue and give this a couple of years to play itself out, the technology will come out with a more effective solution,” Schwartzman said.

Though Clinton and Dole have different positions on the V-chip, observers say they both benefit politically from denouncing sex and violence in the media.

“The public is genuinely concerned about sex and violence in the media,” said Andy Schwartzman, executive director of Media Access Project, a Washington-based legal advocacy group. “But it serves Bob Dole’s and Clinton’s respective need to go to the right and be tough on sex and violence in the media.” Almost no politician can go wrong, Schwartzman said, “making network television a whipping boy.”

* HOLLYWOOD WATCH

Clinton calls for voluntary controls on programming. A1.