Would you let your 6-year-old child watch a TV show that was rated TV-Y7-FV? Would you even know what that meant?
If you’re like most parents, you would not know what it means. You might think it means it is appropriate for children under 7, when it actually means it is suitable for children 7 and older.
You might also believe, as 8% did in a recent survey, that the “FV” stands for “family viewing.” In fact, it stands for “fantasy violence.” Probably not something you would want your 6-year-old to watch.
That’s the problem with the TV ratings system in the United States. It is an alphabet soup of codes that no one understands.
The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission is conducting a review into the effectiveness and accuracy of the TV ratings. But this is an opportunity for us to also consider how we rate movies and video games for children, as well.
The research evidence indicates that an overhaul is sorely needed. We recommend establishing an easy-to-understand universal ratings system for all forms of media, with ratings assigned by child development experts rather than the industry.
We should scrap the rating systems we currently have for all media in the United States (e.g., TV-MA for TV, R for movies, Ao for video games), and different content codes (e.g., FV, V, S, L, D, AC, AL, GL, MV, V, GV, BN, N, SSC, RP).
The age-graded system is too broad to be useful to parents. For movies, there are only two restrictive ratings (i.e., PG-13 and R), and for TV there are only two restrictive ratings (i.e., TV-14 and TV-MA). Having a more sensitive age-graded rating system, such as used in Europe for video games (i.e., for ages 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+, 18+), would give parents more information than the rather broad rating systems we have in place.
In addition, ratings on TV shows go by too quickly for parents to see and evaluate them. It would be better to have the rating up the entire time the program is on.
Our own research has shown that violent content is increasing over time, even within ratings. In one of our studies, we found that the number of acts of gun violence shown in top Hollywood movies rated PG-13 has nearly tripled since the rating was introduced in 1984, and PG-13 movies contain more acts of gun violence than do R-rated movies since 2012.
The current rating system is also subject to abuse. The increase in gun violence in PG-13 movies has become acceptable because the movie industry knows that the ratings board will not assign a PG-13 rating to a violent movie if the consequences of the violence are graphic, showing blood and suffering. As a result, there may be even more violence in movies rated PG-13 than in those rated R, so long as little of it is regarded as graphic. And that, of course, enables larger audiences to see it.
Those who assign ratings probably also become desensitized to objectionable content by rating so many films. In our own research, we have found that parents are more willing to give a violent film with a PG-13 rating an acceptable age of 15 rather than the age of 13 that the rating suggests.
Other countries have done much better than the U.S. in this regard. For example, the Netherlands uses age-based ratings (e.g., 12+ for ages 12 and older) and easy-to-understand symbols for content-based ratings (e.g., fist for violence, syringe for drugs) for TV programs, movies, and video games, with ratings assigned by child development experts rather than the industry.
The bottom line is the U.S. has a ratings system, but parents don’t use it very much, they don’t know what it means, and they don’t know where to look. It is time to have a new, easier-to-understand ratings system that is controlled by child development experts and not the media industry.
Brad Bushman, Ph.D., is professor of communication and psychology and the Rinehart Chair of Mass Communication at Ohio State University. Dan Romer, Ph.D., is research director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and director of its Adolescent Communication Institute.
