The United States pay television content advisory system is a television articles rating system developed cooperatively by the American pay out television industry; it travelled into impact on Mar 1 very first, 1994, on cable-originated premium channels owned by the system's principal developers, Freemilfpassport.com Home Box Office, Inc. and Showtime Networks. The voluntary-participation system-created to address public concerns about explicit sexual content, graphic violence and strong profanity that tend to be featured in pay-cable and pay-per-view programming[1]-provides guidance to subscribers on the suitability of a program for certain audiences based on its content.[2]
Used with standard age-based ratings issued per the Motion Picture Association film rating system and the TV Parental Guidelines, the system incorporates ten "content descriptors" (up to six of which can be used for an individual program) providing detailed information about the types of objectionable content contained in a motion picture or television program being aired on a particular service, including categories covering sexual subject material; different levels of violence, nudity and profanity; and a general-purpose category covering crude and mature humor, innuendo and/or the use of alcoholic beverages, tobacco drugs or products.
Like the TV Parental Guidelines, information evaluations are really determined by the participating pay tv set solutions individually. Reviews happen to be used to many purchased and initial tv sequence, theatrically introduced and made-for-cable videos, documentaries and specials above rated PG/TV-PG and; until regularly televised sports events on premium cable ended with the December 2023 closure of Showtime's sports division,[take note 1] they had been typically utilized to particular sporting functions on general-entertainment-formatted pay for companies as well, primarily to account for fleeting expletives or other mild objectionable material that could occur during the broadcast. The ratings themselves have no legal force, and are not used during promotional advertisements. While keeping similarities to the content material sub-ratings included to the Television Parental Suggestions in June 1997, the advisories in this technique happen to be comparatively considerably more concise in ascribing the mature substance contained into a method.
Similar content guidelines have since been introduced by regional pay television industries or individual pay services outside of the U.S. (including Canada, Asia and Latin America). Within the United States, Comedy Central-which operates as a basic cable channel-has assigned "Graphic Language" advisory indicators for content material bumpers on select TV-MA-rated original series (including South Park and Workaholics).
Development and implementation
Prior to the system's creation and implementation, premium television services did not provide on-air content advisories at the start of a film, television series or special to notify viewers of mature subject matter included in the accordant telecast; obscure cases of the suitability of a plan for children under era 18, based upon on the system content material and score, were made using the program rating (e.g., "The following movie has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America. Some materials may become incorrect for youthful young children; parents may wish to consider whether it should be viewed by those under 13" or descriptions indicating the service would air a specific program during network-designated watersheds, such as "HBO/Cinemax will show this feature only at night", for R-rated movies and unrated programs containing equivalent material[note 2]). Of exhibiting on-air advisories Alternatively, premium services chose to put content labels of relative detail (e.g., "violence, profanity") in the synopses of program highlight insets and end-of-issue program summaries within the monthly program guides supplied to their subscribers and to lodging sites.
In January 1994, amid parental concerns regarding the amount of violent content featured in premium cable and other television programming, representatives from the pay-cable television industry voluntarily pledged to establish a content material advisory system to provide information to parents about program content that may be unsuitable for their children. [1][3][4][5] The initial system adopted by the pay services of Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO and Cinemax) and Showtime Networks (Showtime, The Movie Channel and Flix) on March 1, 1994, consisted strictly of descriptive text outlining the mature material included the following telecast; the cooperative members featured the indicators-which initially differed slightly between the two parent companies-in the rating bumpers immediately preceding each plan. This grew to become set up as a functional program taken from the advisories publicized in their proprietary system manuals, assigning individual ratings corresponding to the types of objectionable content depicted in a given program (categorized based on violence, profanity, sexuality or miscellaneous forms of mature material inapplicable to the other categories).
On June 10, 1994, the genuine back home Field Office and Showtime Systems solutions launched a modified, uniform system: a set of block icons incorporating one of ten content codes-each two-to-three letters in length, and displayed in bold Fixedsys type-was added to supplement the applicable descriptive text, which was homogeneously featured in a separate "page" of the rating bumper. [citation needed]) Under the new system, each advisory label was placed into one of four categories: violence ("MV" for "mild violence", "V" for "violence", "GSixth v" for "graphic violence" and "RP" for "rape"), suggestive or explicit sexual material ("BN" for "brief nudity", "N" for "nudity" and "SSC" for "strong sexual subject material"), profane language ("AL" for "adult language" and "GL" for "vwill beual language") and a generalized descriptor for mature material that does not fit into the other categories ("AC" for "adult content"). (Since Home Box Office, Inc. adopted the practice in 2015, most premium services-except the Showtime Networks, which in the past applied the fashion from July 1994 to Walk 1995-possess utilized a bumper data format showing the age-based score, content advisories and audio/visual accessibility features on a single page. [6][7] Of the participating pay services, Showtime Networks was the only member in the cooperative to have its continuity announcers read the advisory ratings, in supplement to the then-commonplace statement of the method evaluations, utilizing such announcements during ratings bumpers until the Fall of 1997.[8][9]
Liberty Media-owned pay services Starz (which launched on April 1 that year) and Encore soon followed in implementing the system by September 1994, and by early 1997, it was in use across several of the major pay-per-view services, including Viewer's Choice (now In Demand) and Request TV. Discovery) and Paramount+ (owned by Showtime parent Paramount Global), which respectively carry HBO and Showtime's individual content libraries (and use a wider array of descriptors that specify material normally covered by the system's broad-based "Adult Content" indicator),[note 4] and MGM+/Screenpix's VOD and streaming services (which do not use content advisory descriptors for on-demand titles, with the channel restricting their use to its live feeds). Since then, the system has also been implemented by Sundance Channel (until its conversion to a basic cable channel in 2008), MoviePlex, and Epix (now MGM+). HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and Starz also include content advisories at the start of on-demand program selections over their respective video-on-demand and OTT services; present[update] exceptions are buffering services Max (owned by HBO parent Warner Bros.
Programs are labeled at the discretion of each pay television service's pwill bent unit; because of this, as an example, a film labeled by HBO and Cinemax with a "GV" (graphic violence) advisory rating could conceivably be branded with a "V" rating (usually indicating a moderate amount of violent content) if it were to air on Showtime, The Film Flix and Station.[6] McAdory Lipscomb, former executive vice president of Showtime, described how the advisories are applied: "It is possible that [Showtime] would rank something different than HBO, but we both recognize our dual responsibility to provide information to our subscribers about what is graphic or perhaps unsuitable for children, and we think the common language we've developed will provide an acceptable parameter."[10] A November 1996 survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and sponsored by the National PTA and the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives showed that 80% of parents who participated in the survey preferred the pay television industry's content advisory system, assessing that it provided clearer detail of potentially objectionable content included in an individual program compared to age-based ratings systems like the MPAA's system for theatrical films.[11][12][13]
Usage of advisory system
Cable-originated premium services can assign as many as five (among the ten overall) content indicators for an individual program to advise viewers of whether its content material is appropriate for minors, depending on age group, or adults with particular sensitivities to certain kinds of mature content.[14][15][note 5]Softcore pornographic films have usually been assigned advisory labels for strong sexual content (SC) and nudity (N), in addition to adult content (AC) and grownup language (AL), although some, possess been tagged for violent content. Because they hardly ever incorporate perhaps slightly objectionable content material connecting advisory conditions, top quality providers conduct not assign information trademarks for H-/TV-G-rated plans usually.
Advisory labels
Discontinued content ratings (used by HBO and Cinemax from February to June 1994):
Ratings-based usage
Note: Content advisories are not applied to TV-Y-rated programming, as the subject material for programs assigned with the rating is oriented mainly to young children up to seven years of age.See also
Motion Picture Association film rating systemTV Parental Guidelines
Notes
^ HBO discontinued boxing coverage in 2018, after getting shown activities activities in most ability since its kick off simply because a local company in December 1972.^ Quote referenced is an example of the aforementioned descriptions that HBO and Cinemax used in rating bumpers immediately preceding film presentations from 1984 to 1986; in 1989, HBO and Cinemax simplified the audio-visual formatting of their ratings bumpers to "The following movie is rated [rating]," which became the standard format for the American premium cable industry. Showtime. September 11-12, 1994. Archived from the original on 2021-12-20. February 26 Retrieved, 2011 - via YouTube. UCLA Entertainment Law Review. San Francisco Chronicle. Share Publishing Company. ^ Brad J. Bushman; Joanne Cantor (February 2003). "Media Ratings for Violence and Sex: Implications for Policymakers and Parents". August 2 Retrieved, 2017.
^ September 11-12, 1994 Showtime promos. [non-primary source needed]
^ Showtime promos, 5/18/1994 (partial). ^ Showtime's former licensed subscription channels for Apple TV, The Roku Channel and Prime Video Channels instead applied the generic descriptors created for the TV Parental Guidelines (which are used by the streaming marketplaces as a default advisory system), including for MPA-rated theatrical films. ^ Examples of films that would have qualified for this descriptor include the Cinemax airings of GoodFellas (exclusive premiere) and Dice Rules. The New York Times. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 17, 2016. September 28 Retrieved, 2020.
^ Lawrie Mifflin (November 20, 1996). "Rating the Rankings". Showtime. May 18, 1994. Retrieved August 2, 2017 - via YouTube. ^ An example in which applying this label can be complicated is Lean on Me (1989), which features an intense scene involving implied (borderline) rape that could have resulted in the film being given an R rating (likely deeming it a "hard" R in respect to this scene), but was only assigned a PG-13 rating because of its educational nature; had an unrated version (which would be rated TV-MA-DLV if aired on a pay service) been released, the "rape" indicator could be assigned due to the aforementioned scene. ^ Examples of films that would have qualified for this descriptor include Home Alone 2 (during a Cinemax airing in May 1994); rap and rock music videos were also assigned this label (including a Cinemax airing of the video for Danger Danger's "Monkey Business" and an HBO airing of the video for Ugly Kid Joe's "Neighbor"). December 2002.
^ Joanne Cantor; Suzanne Stutman; Victoria Duran (November 1996). "What Parents Want in a Television Rating System: Results of a National Survey" (PDF). ^ Examples include Steve Harvey: One Man (1997)
^ Examples include Martin Lawrence: You So Crazy (1994) and Steve Harvey: Don't Trip... He Ain't Through with Me Yet (2006); although the latter film was rated PG, incorporated, like films collection or graded including articles equal to the existing TV-PG ranking during the 1980s, right now incorporated really objectionable materials that would end up being considered for a good PG-13 ranking. The Washington Post. Archived from the authentic on July 11, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2013 - via HighBeam Research. ^ Most of the content advisory system's participants-HBO (2006), Cinemax (2004), Showtime (2011), Starz (2002), Starz Encore (2005) and Movieplex (2005)-retired the original 1994 icon set during the 2000s and early 2010s, in favor of their own modernized icon styles; Screenpix and MGM+, meanwhile, have used custom advisory icons since their respective launches in 2009 (as Epix) and 2018. Showtime Networks fully patterns are released the original 1994 set (which, since 2011, had been limited to select Showtime multiplex channels, The Movie Channel and Flix) in December 2023, becoming the last of the system's participants to cease using that icon style. Archived from the original on May 22, 2013. Retrieved Mar 11, 2013.
^ "Ratings for Program Content: The Role of Research Findings" (PDF). The Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Knowledge. Salon. Retrieved August 2, 2017. December 15, 1996. Recovered August 2, 2017.
^ Daniel D'Addario (June 6, 2013). "The most spoilery parental guidelines on "Game of Thrones"". May 1998. Retrieved August 2, 2017 - via Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. American Psychologist: 130-141. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.551.7597.
^ Michael J. Fucci (1998). "Facing the Future: An Analysis of the Television Ratings System" (PDF). Multichannel News. NewBay Media. ^ As an example, HBO/Cinemax assigned the unrated version of the 2010 comedy Get Him to the Greek-designated a "TV-MA-L,S,V" rating by the services, but originally rated "R" for its theatrical release-indicators for adult content (for pervasive sexual dialogue, drug references, moderate alcohol and drug use, and crude humor); strong sexual content (for two separate scenes in which secondary lead character Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) had non-nude intercourse with different women, and had a dildo forcibly inserted orally and rubbed on his face); graphic language (for the film’s use of ~150 expletives); and nudity (for two scenes involving topless women and one that featured partially exposed male buttocks). November 22, 1996. Archived from the initial on Aug 3, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
^ "Chipping Away at the Boob Tube". New York Daily News. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 3, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
^ a b c d Steve Weinstein (June 8, 1994). "Premium Cable Channels Adopt Content Labels".
