The V-Chip: Dream or Nightmare? : Commentary: Program content and the invasion of family hour have some viewers seeking more control. Hollywood fights censorship. Are the lines drawn?

The TV entertainment industry and its advertisers will break into a cold sweat if their latest nightmare--the v-chip--becomes a reality.

Amid the most recent barrage against sex, violence and racy language on the home screen, potential congressional legislation could require television sets to include a device--the v-chip--that would enable parents and others to block out such programming and, says one source, entire time periods as well.

Programs would be classified under some sort of movie-type rating system, then electronically coded. Viewers could activate the chip in their TV set to black out whatever programming they found to contain objectionable material--on broadcast outlets and cable.

Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.), a Republican presidential contender, set off an ongoing furor with a recent attack on sex and violence in TV, movies and pop music.

President Clinton, who this week supported the v-chip but has taken a more kid-gloves approach to Hollywood, where he picks up major campaign contributions, has also suggested that show business be more careful of its product. Poll results indicate that much of the public agrees. And 1996 is a presidential election year.

Thus the question: To v-chip or not to v-chip?

The showdown could hardly be more crucial for TV at a time when networks are losing viewers and many broadcasters and cable operators are turning to exploitative programming, desperately trying to hold on to increasingly fractionalized audiences. Further viewer erosion from a v-chip could add significantly to the crisis.

That in turn could cause a drop in prices that sponsors pay, as well as a possible loss of some advertisers.

Well, as you can imagine, those who have been highly critical of TV’s racier bent in recent years may well think this is all just fine--absolutely great, in fact. Who, they might ask, are these networks and other makers of television programs who are undermining our values, our standards, our tastes--and how long did they think they could get away with it without a backlash that carries the threat of real clout?

If the public agrees that commercial TV is simply running wild--from suggestive prime-time programs to freaky afternoon talk shows to crime-heavy local news to tabloid-style newsmagazines--Hollywood, always an easy congressional target, might be a truly vulnerable one this time around.

History has generally been on the side of the TV entertainment moguls. The past pattern has been almost predictable: Congress gets headlines by hollering about sex and violence. Television--in great part because its stations require federal licensing--nods benignly, agrees it ought to do better and argues that it can best fix its own problems instead of having outside forces intrude.

*

It thereupon makes statements about its public responsibilities, vows to look into the accusations, treads softly for a while in its programming and then, eventually, after a decent period of contrition, forgets the whole damn thing and goes right back to normal. Congress has gotten its publicity, and television has performed its absolution. Who could ask for anything more?

In recent years, however, pressures on both sides have increased. From Dole to Clinton to Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) to former Vice President Dan Quayle to the Rev. Donald Wildmon, the conservative activist who strikes fear in the hearts of advertisers, the heat on TV rarely seems to have let up.

And the public, increasingly sophisticated about the content of television and its influence on viewers, especially youngsters, has made its own feelings known as well.

On the other side, Hollywood’s essentially liberal creative community has stood its ground more than in the past. Quayle, Dole and Wildmon have been rebutted in strong terms.

In short, the lines seem to have been drawn. The latest, clearest example is the fall season’s new prime-time lineup, where the 8-9 p.m. time period, once the primary terrain of family viewing, has been loaded up with racy, adult-themed series.

It would be easy to ridicule the whole notion of the v-chip. Adult comedy series such as “Seinfeld” and “Friends,” for instance, might well be unplugged in ultra-conservative homes.

And what about Michael Jackson’s recent prime-time interview with Diane Sawyer? It was on an ABC newsmagazine, but since it easily qualified as infotainment, would some viewers be happily willing to tune out a program that raised the subject of child molestation?

A wicked comedian or maybe just an extreme critic of television, like Wildmon, could, with little effort, sketch out a prime-time network schedule with lots of empty spaces--potential blacked-out programming because of a v-chip.

To many viewers, of course, what the whole argument--v-chip or no v-chip--is really all about is an attempted corrective, a simple change of course that they want from the networks and cable and anybody else in TV who has the power to invade the final inner sanctum of a beleaguered public: one’s own home, the remaining place where you and your family are supposed to be able to control the standards and tastes of your own life.

For many in the public, that ultimate inner sanctum now has been violated. One might rightly guess that what many viewers want is not a v-chip, but some attention and positive response at the highest industry levels to what has angered them about television--what the medium has become.

In the past, an occasional national event might cause TV to back off a little. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, for instance, there was a temporary reduction in prime-time violence. But today’s TV, with its take-no-prisoners sensation-seeking, would probably respond differently.

Would a v-chip cause TV to back off at least a little in its questionable program directions that become more pronounced each season? For every “NYPD Blue” or “Seinfeld,” there are countless, far less artful attempts to capitalize on the new opportunities these shows have made possible--and it is these parasitic programs that continually drag down the level of TV taste and arouse public ire.

In the end, there is the censorship question raised by the specter of a possible v-chip. And it is a real issue. Purists will rightly argue that even a little censorship is like being a little pregnant--you can’t escape the basic fact of its existence.

But TV’s problem is that it has alienated so many viewers that arguments about possible censorship may, alas, seem inconsequential in exchange for a chance to reclaim control of the kind of material that is broadcast into their homes.