PTC Call for Ratings Change Seen Unlikely To Lead to FCC Action

Not all were ratings revamp naysayers. Those attorneys are painting the issue as complex and difficult because it is in broadcasters' interest to do so, said Nell Minow, a signatory to the PTC letter who reviews films as The Movie Mom. “It's obvious that an oversight board with no transparency that is controlled by the industry isn't going to do a good job,” said Minow, daughter of former FCC Chairman Newton Minow. “We're just asking the FCC to look into the question.”

The PTC letter argues that the industry control of the rating system has led to incorrect ratings, with shows, despite their content, rarely rated as being appropriate only for mature viewers. That makes it difficult for parents or V-chip systems to gauge accurately what kind of content children may be viewing, PTC has said. “The system is bad, and the output is bad,” Minow told us. “The responsibility for protecting children has fallen entirely on parents -- parents who have not been provided with the ratings they need to make decisions about whether programming is appropriate for children,” the PTC letter said.

The FCC “will continue to take complaints about obscene or indecent broadcasts seriously” and “will continue to take appropriate action in cases where families and children have been exposed to indecent and obscene content,” Chairman Tom Wheeler told Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, in a May 11 letter released Friday. Smith had written Wheeler in February complaining of content on cable and satellite TV and his constituents reporting “unwanted exposure to explicit and indecent material” on programming and in commercials. He pointed out the FCC “has been hesitant to address this issue under the veil of promoting consumer choice in programming.” Wheeler reminded Smith of the agency’s legal authority and tallied how the commission approaches these issues on broadcast stations, noting that the agency’s powers do not extend to pay TV. Wheeler also pointed to the ratings system and V-chip as possible solutions -- the tools PTC has criticized as being ineffective.

The FCC doesn't have the authority to require changes to the voluntary, industry controlled rating system, broadcast attorney Jack Goodman told us. The legislation that led to the current ratings system required the FCC to approve the ratings system, but didn't give it continuing oversight, he said. To get the authority to act on the current system would take congressional action, Goodman said. PTC argued in the letter that the TV industry hasn't lived up to the original rules. The entertainment industry has “consistently chosen to shield the status quo, rather than actively pursue improvements or reform, as the original Report and Order establishing TVOMB required,” PTC said.

Nearly every attorney we spoke with cited other ongoing big undertakings at the FCC and the upcoming change at the White House as reasons the commission was unlikely to take up this matter. “You don't want to bite off more than you can chew,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney Howard Liberman. It's highly unlikely, said Holland and Knight attorney Charles Naftalin. The FCC won't engage with the substance of the TV ratings system, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick. When the FCC has gotten involved with regulating content in the past, First Amendment concerns always have been raised by broadcasters, and likely would be raised here as well, numerous attorneys said. It likely would take a new administration willing to grapple with the issue for some action to be taken, Liberman said. Doing so would raise concerns beyond the legal realm, Goodman said. An independent ratings board likely would require a large bureaucracy because of the sheer volume of TV programs, he said. Though the MPAA is able to assign ratings to the hundreds of movies that premiere every year, there are thousands of TV programs, he pointed out.