Ratings Plan Set to Go to the FCC

The television industry plans to formally submit its ratings plan to the Federal Communications Commission next week. Although FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said he expects NBC--which refused to sign on to the agreement--to submit its alternative plan for review, NBC executives said in interviews this week that the network has no intention of doing so.

The rest of the TV industry has promised to add the symbols S, L, V and/or D--for sex, language, violence and suggestive dialogue--to programming by Oct. 1. Almost all networks, including NBC, now use age-based categories, such as TV-PG and TV-14, which are patterned after movie ratings.

NBC has quietly begun adding a few new on-screen advisories created by the network to augment the industry’s age-based categories. The advisory, “Due to some violent content, parental discretion advised,” was added to a movie, “Out for Justice,” last week and will be added to the upcoming movie, “She Fought Alone,” airing next week. And the Aug. 6 episode of NBC’s “Homicide” will carry this warning from the network: “This episode has a level of violence unusual for this series.”

In a letter last week to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a major proponent of the revised TV ratings plan, NBC President Bob Wright said, NBC “plans to increase the number and variety of program advisories” while continuing to air the age-based categories. While NBC declined to specifically comment on whether the network would submit its plan to the FCC for approval, several executives at the network said NBC will not.

“The whole point of the TV ratings system is that it’s supposed to be a voluntary effort by the TV industry,” one executive said. “How can we be forced to submit a voluntary plan?”

Some legal experts said they thought NBC might have a point. The 1996 telecommunications act that mandated the “V-chip” electronic blocking device in TV sets by February 1998 says that the FCC would establish an advisory committee to create TV ratings only if it determines that the TV industry has not created a satisfactory plan of its own.

“If NBC doesn’t submit its plan, then I guess we would have to operate without knowing what NBC is doing,” said Christopher Wright, deputy general counsel of the FCC (and no relation to NBC’s Bob Wright). He said that he “wouldn’t want to take a position” on whether the FCC could force NBC to submit its plan if the network refuses to do so, or what measures the FCC could take against NBC or its affiliates.

“Nobody can be forced to do TV ratings,” said one communications attorney who declined to be identified. “The FCC is supposed to evaluate the industry’s plan, and the industry has a plan,” albeit without the participation of NBC. That agreement--signed by the National Assn. of Broadcasters, the National Cable Television Assn. and the Motion Picture Assn. of America--is the one that is being submitted to the FCC next week. Where that leaves NBC is not entirely clear.

But FCC action is not the only pressure on NBC. Industry sources say they expect NBC to suffer elsewhere--in Congress and in public opinion.

“If NBC doesn’t change its stance, they’ll eventually feel the impact from Congress in subtle ways, on other issues where NBC needs congressional support,” one network executive warned.

Though they are holding their fire for now in the hope that NBC changes its mind, members of Congress and children’s groups who negotiated the revised ratings are unlikely to let NBC off the hook.

Markey said to NBC’s Wright in a letter this week, “It is your right, under the V-chip law, to use any ratings system you desire. But it is clearly not in the public interest for NBC to balkanize the consensus [ratings] system.”

Another issue going before the commission: Is NBC fulfilling the second part of the V-chip legislation? This part requires networks that carry ratings to broadcast encoded signals allowing parents to block out objectionable programming after a V-chip is in place. NBC does plan to broadcast the age-based ratings. However, it is not clear whether these will meet the requirements of the legislation when the industry is using S, L, V and D ratings.