A Study Of The American Television Ratings (1996-2009)

The tendency of broadcasting more and more indecent programs in many countries in the world has become increasingly serious since the birth of broadcasting TV programs as an industry. Such a status quo is mainly caused by the increasing competition within the TV program providers, the practice to enhance the audience ratings and the measures to attract the eyeballs. The 1990s witnessed the peak situation of this in the US. The indecent TV programs shown in this country cover TV violence, pornography, foul language and language describing sex etc. TV programs transmit knowledge related to culture, values, mental health and social behaviors etc and have profound influence on audience especially on the under-age children. The indecent TV programs have flooded the US TV screens and have also produced many social problems– rises in the campus violence, before-marriage sex and sex-related crimes which caused great worry and common concern in the American society.The US congress has instituted a series of laws and regulations to supervise the content of the indecent TV programs since the 1990s when William B. Clinton worked as the president. These include the American Television Rating System which aims to lower the negative influence on the audience, and the Telecommunication Act of 1996 which caused a heated dispute and is commented to be most influential and most typical of American characteristics. The American Television Rating System, to a certain extent, used the models and standards of the American Movie Rating Systems which were issued in 1968 as the framework and got the technical backup from the V-chip. It had Age-Based Ratings and Content Ratings to guide the audience to select or screen a program which is suitable for them. This system was welcomed by the parents and got the support from the American public. American government played a great role in designing and implementing the American Television Rating System. However, the system was not enforced compulsorily. It is up to the willingness and self-discipline of the relevant people and industries. That is, the specific ratings are designated by the TV providers and parents supervise their under-age children voluntarily. The system did meet the purpose of supervising the TV programs without violating the First Amendment of the US Constitution during the Clinton administration. It passed the oversight responsibility of the media and government on to the parents. This is after all to put the cart before the horse. What makes it worse is that the system was not publicized greatly to every household and with its random implementation; it did not get the ideal result after being carried out. Quite a number of studies conducted in 1996 indicated that indecent TV programs increased instead of being decreased after the implementation of the rating system. The American TV Rating System still needs to be perfected up to today and American Congress issued several laws to clean up the TV screens of the country and protect the mass audience even after it was enforced for more than ten years.The TV program providers in our country also face the social problems of the increasing vulgarization of TV programs and they also have been working to find a better solution. A study on the designing process, the characteristics, the implementation effectiveness and the social feedback of the American TV Rating System can provide our TV professionals with successful experiences. The implementation results of the American TV Rating System indicate that the oversight of the indecent TV programs is a systematic engineering which requires the following works to be done: designing the special laws, specifying the implementation standards, unifying the supervising measures, intensifying the social role of supervision. In this way a combined role of supervision will be established. Meanwhile we should also increase the fine to those who violate the law. With all these measures to be appropriately implemented, can the Americans realize the purpose of cleansing the nationwide TV screens.