FCC Expected to Order the V-Chip in New TVs by 2000

Federal regulators are expected today to take the final step in deploying the controversial V-chip technology, which will enable owners of new television sets to block programs that contain objectionable violence or sex.

The FCC is expected to order that the V-chip blocking technology be installed in 50% of sets by mid-1999 and 100% of all sets by the end of that year.

“This will give parents a powerful tool to protect their kids from programs that might be harmful to them,” FCC Chairman William E. Kennard said.

In addition, the FCC will vote to formally accept the 14-month-old television ratings system that V-chip-equipped television set owners may use to screen program content.

The action by the FCC comes after lawmakers, the White House and parents groups put massive pressure on the broadcast industry to adopt a system that uses letter ratings to inform parents about the content of each TV show and its suitability for children.

In January 1997, broadcasters voluntarily began airing letter ratings that grouped shows in one of six different age categories, ranging from TV-G for all age groups to TV-MA for mature audiences. The ratings are displayed for 15 seconds at the beginning of every program on the upper left-hand portion of existing television screens.

But last October, following protests that the system did not provide enough information about program content, most broadcasters expanded the system to identify programs with sex, violence, objectionable language, suggestive dialogue and children’s programs containing fantasy violence. NBC was the lone exception.

The V-chip gives those program ratings a new dimension by allowing parents to electronically block all shows that have a given rating. But some critics say the technology doesn’t go far enough.

“I think it’s a sad day for parents,” said Mark Honig, executive director of the Parents Television Council in Los Angeles. “The ratings system is still failing parents. And the fact of the matter is that survey after survey demonstrates that many are not using it because it does not provide enough information about content.”

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Indeed, an Associated Press poll earlier this month found that seven in 10 adults say they pay little or no attention to the ratings.

Some experts think that figure may drop with the V-chip, but the industry has been challenged in finding a technology easy enough for adults to use but too tough for children to figure out. Many adults are unable to even set the correct time on their VCRs, for example.

What’s more, the blocking system can be circumvented in some circumstances by using common VCRs, which are not required under the law to contain the V-chip.

“For a 4- and 5-year-old child this probably isn’t going to be an issue, but a persistent 16-year-old, well, that is a different story,” Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Assn., said about the ease of defeating V-chip technology.

The V-chip works in much the same way that television now decodes program information for viewers who are hearing-impaired.

TV ratings are transmitted in a part of the television signal known as the vertical blanking interval--the black line at the bottom of the screen that only becomes visible if the TV picture begins to roll up or down.

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Even as the debate over the effectiveness of V-chips continues, experts are bracing for an onslaught of litigation between set manufacturers and nearly a dozen firms that claim to have invented the V-chip.

“We own intellectual property patents in this area,” said H. Lee Browne, president of Soundview Technologies, a Greenwich, Conn.-based company that plans to market $60 converter boxes that will allow the 200 million existing TV sets to implement program-blocking technology.

Another inventor who claims he invented the V-chip, John W. Olivo Jr. of the Parental Guide in Omaha, is also eyeing the TV market, but says his company has not been approached by any large manufacturers of TV sets yet.

Although the technology is called the V-chip, there is not a single chip that would control the system. Rather, the technology would utilize existing circuits in the television receiver to process the coded program information.