Recently, a group of Hollywood lobbyists visited the FCC’s Media Bureau to talk about the TV content ratings system, the efficacy of which is currently being reviewed by the FCC at the behest of Congress.
While these kinds of lobbyist meetings happen every day, this one stands out for its complete hypocrisy, the ramifications of which could adversely affect current and future generations of young Americans.
Hollywood tells parents to rely on the TV content rating system to choose safe and age-appropriate television shows, just as they ask us to rely on the movie rating system.
At the same time, Hollywood markets explicit sex, graphic violence, and profanity to our children through TV and movies by labeling them as appropriate for children and adolescents.
That’s a win-win scenario for the entertainment industry, but it’s lose-lose for families. Research suggests that the TV rating system is failing parents. In fact, Parents Television Council research has consistently proven that the TV ratings are inaccurate and that TV shows are rated for younger audiences than is appropriate.
A 2016 study published in Pediatrics found that TV ratings “were ineffective in discriminating shows for 3 out of 4 behaviors studied [violence, sexual behavior, alcohol use, and smoking in TV shows]. Even in shows rated for children as young as 7 years, violence was prevalent, prominent, and salient.”
In the aforementioned meeting at the FCC, and in two other public comments posted on the FCC’s website, Hollywood lobbyists argued against improving the current TV rating system or to bringing greater awareness or transparency for the public. In other words, the 22-year-old TV rating system, which was created half a generation before Google, Netflix or the iPhone existed, needs no modernizing, no updates, and no changes whatsoever. (Insert laugh track here.)
Why would seven Hollywood lobbyists descend upon the FCC to advocate against improving a system that they tell the public to rely upon every single day?
As with most stories, follow the money. Television networks are financially motivated not to rate their programming higher than TV-14; otherwise, advertisers who are looking to reach broad audiences will leave, and many viewers won’t watch. So the broadcast networks end up rating all of their programming TV-PG or TV-14, regardless whether the content warrants a higher rating. Currently, there are no TV-MA-rated shows on broadcast television, not one, despite that Parents Television Council research found that the violent shows on broadcast TV have essentially similar levels of violence as the most violent cable TV shows.
In their quiet little FCC meeting, the Hollywood lobbyists made a number of easily-refuted excuses to keep the status quo. First, they claimed that the “TV ratings are subjective.” But the ratings system and its oversight were created precisely to provide consumers with objective guidance. It’s even spelled out on the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board’s website. When the industry gives this weak excuse, they’re doing so only to hide behind a veil of subjectivity and avoid public accountability.
Second, Hollywood says they don’t get complaints about inaccurately-rated TV shows. Well, yeah, of course they don’t! Why would they get complaints when most Americans have never even heard of the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board? Most Americans have no any idea that it is their obligation to contact the board if they believe a rating is wrong. Most Americans believe that the TV content ratings are applied by an independent group, just as the MPAA does for movies; but that is not the case for TV shows. The broadcast and cable networks that assign the age rating for their own shows sit on the very oversight board tasked with ensuring that TV ratings are accurate.
Third, Hollywood’s lobbyists claim that parents say the ratings system works and that they are satisfied. This is true if the conclusion is based upon the polling data that the entertainment industry bought and paid for. But based upon more than 1,700 public comments to the FCC concerning the TV content rating system, 100% of Americans who are not entertainment industry lobbyists publicly stated some level of concern or dissatisfaction with explicit or age-inappropriate content reaching children.
Here’s a head-scratcher: Even the MPAA’s own lobbyist is advocating to protect a TV content rating system that is inferior to the MPAA’s content rating system.
The FCC is required to report back to Congress on May 15. In the meantime, Hollywood is working feverishly to preserve and protect its current TV content rating system, despite evidence that it will adversely impact generations of young Americans.
Children deserve to be protected from harmful media content, and one way to do it is to label that content with an age-based rating system that is accurate, consistent, transparent and accountable to the public. Right now, it is none of those four things.
Now is the time for the FCC to consider how it can help to modernize the content rating system for the benefit of the American people, not to protect the status quo for Hollywood lobbyists who profit from an outdated and broken system.
A former NBC and MGM executive, Tim Winter is the president of the Parents Television Council, a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment.
