Promos Rip Heart Out of V-Chip Intent

TV sets equipped with the V-chip gizmo are now in stores, but there have been no reports of a mad stampede by consumers to snap them up. The V-chip is a device that enables parents to block out TV programs above a certain parental-guidance rating level--say, TV-14--so their kids can’t watch such shows.

The V-chip has always seemed a shaky notion, intrusive in concept and very complicated to operate. But there’s another huge flaw in the system: Promos for adult shows will apparently continue to run during “family” viewing hours, thus exposing kids to images of brutality, graphic sex and all manner of sordid tripe.

This will happen unless there is a massive change of heart in the broadcasting and cable industries--two businesses not known for big hearts.

My 5-year-old godson, the brightest child I know (actually, one of the brightest people I know of any age), likes to watch TV in the mornings with his father while Dad works out on a treadmill. My godson is getting a basic education in American comedy because one of the TV stations where he lives airs episodes of “The Honeymooners,” followed by “I Love Lucy,” early in the morning.

If any shows can be called family viewing, these classic sitcoms are, and airing them at 8 and 8:30 a.m. means many children are bound to be in the audience. But the TV station, part of the UPN network, regularly airs commercials and promos during the show that my godson’s father does not want him to see. “The only way a parent can watch TV with his child is with the remote control in his hand,” Dad says.

Most prominent is a promo for UPN’s repulsive prime-time wrestling series “WWF Smackdown,” a pathetically desperate attempt by the struggling UPN network to lure violence-loving viewers. Now that CBS and Viacom, which owns UPN, have agreed to merge, the future of “Smackdown” and of UPN is in doubt, but the idiotic series and the promos continue.

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So smack in the middle of “I Love Lucy”--a peaceable, wholesome and very funny show--up pops an ad for “Smackdown” that features extreme violence, billows of belching flame, all kinds of horrific Satanic imagery and a WWF wrestler who appears to have no eyeballs and brandishes a sword dipped in blood. A V-chip in the TV set could not separate the promo from the G-rated show.

The case is merely typical. Increasingly panicky about losing audiences to cable, to satellite TV and to the Internet, TV stations and networks are throwing not just caution to the winds, but common sense--even common decency--as well. The mere existence of “Smackdown” is a worrisome sign.

Viacom also owns MTV, which regularly subjects young viewers (its target audience is 12 and above) to violent and sexually suggestive programming. Various MTV shows carry various ratings, so for a V-chip to block out the entire network would be difficult. And pity the poor parents who try to keep their kids from watching MTV in the first place. If they can’t see it at home, they’ll watch it with friends who have more permissive parents--or who don’t have a V-chip in their TV sets.

The failure of the V-chip is almost a foregone conclusion. It is very unlikely to satisfy the strictest parents who want more censorship of television programs, and it offends civil libertarians who see it as a kind of Big Brother Button. But perhaps its biggest weakness is that commercials and promos are not rated, and we have to depend on the good citizenship of broadcasters and cablecasters to keep family shows free of tawdry teases.

Unfortunately, the TV industry is much more interested in salesmanship than citizenship.

A more sensible solution would be to zone various parts of each broadcast day so that no material hazardous to children would air during those times. Unofficially, the networks already keep most of their adult dramas--shows with nudity and naughty words like ABC’s “NYPD Blue”--in the safe harbor of 10 p.m. But smarmy sitcoms air as early as 8 p.m. And promos for adult shows continue to pop up at inappropriate times during inappropriate programs.

It’s no wonder that parents see television as their children’s enemy. The V-chip isn’t protection so much as it is camouflage. Stations and networks that want to behave irresponsibly still will have all the latitude in the world to do so.