The V Chip Arrives

By Amy Dickinson

Until last week I thought the V chip was a zesty new snack food, and according to a recent survey, I'm not alone. A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals a lot of confusion among parents about use of the V chip, which is designed to let us block objectionable shows from our TVs. By law, starting July 1, half of all new TVs sold in the U.S. with screens of 13 in. or larger must have a V chip installed. By Jan. 1, all new sets must contain one. So last week I attended a demonstration to get acquainted with this tool.

The V chip works with the TV rating system, represented by that little wad of letters and numbers that looks like an eye chart and periodically pops into the corner of your screen. Since 1997, shows have been rated in seven categories, ranging from TV-Y, suitable for all children, to TV-MA, which I originally assumed indicated programs suitable for mamas, but which in fact stands for "mature audiences." Rating icons appear on the screen during the first 15 sec. of a program and are also noted in some TV listings.

In addition, a "content label" may appear as an extra letter tacked onto the icon: V (for violence), S (sexual situations), L (crude language) and D (suggestive dialogue). FV stands not for family viewing, as I assumed, but for "fantasy violence." Used with these ratings, the V chip could be helpful to parents who aren't always home when their kids watch TV and don't want them viewing South Park or the Playboy channel. However, not all networks and cable outlets use the ratings. (NBC, for instance, has declined to use the content label.) And programs are rated by their own producers, which is something akin to letting Ally McBeal (TV-14DS) sit on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Programming the V chip is likely to inspire dread in the millions of parents whose VCRs flash "12:00...12:00...12:00." At the demonstration I attended, a representative of the Consumer Electronic Manufacturers Association pointed his remote at a TV and entered a series of numbers and commands, prompted by an onscreen menu, successfully blocking As the World Turns. Parents, he said, will select a secret access code to change the settings. In an ideal world, the V chip would make Mom and Dad confident that little Suzi's slumber-party guests aren't watching blue movies. In the world I live in, though, Suzi guesses that the access code is the same number you always use: your collie's birthday. She hacks into the system and orders Chainsaw Cheerleaders on pay-per-view.

The V chip is a well-meaning but deeply flawed attempt to help families screen the offerings of a medium run amuck. But there is a low-tech way to do the same thing. Granted, it doesn't have the TV makers or politicians behind it. But I'm thinking that we parents might screen our children's TV viewing by occasionally sitting with them, watching what they watch and making judgments about violence, sexual content, bad language and even gross behavior we'd prefer not to see imitated. When we're not home, we can instruct the sitter to let the kids watch only programs we've approved. If we have to have a V chip in our homes, it might as well be us.

For more about the V chip, see the vchipeducation.org website. You can send Amy an e-mail at timefamily@aol.com