Bill Roberts is secretary general of the North American National Broadcasters Association.

The wispy apparition apparently sighted last month in the general vicinity of M Street nw in Washington, d.c., would have been unrecognizable to most Americans. But to the trained Canadian eye, the phantom lurking outside the headquarters of the American Federal Communications Commission had a visage resembling that of Keith Spicer, and it had a faint smile almost hidden by the trademark broad-brimmed fedora.

The ghost of the former chair of the crtc was no doubt in the American capital to observe the conclusion of a process which he almost single-handedly had put into motion some nine years ago. Profoundly troubled by the massacre of 14 women students at Montreal’s Ecole Politechnique, Spicer had made the issue of violence in society as reflected in television programming his personal crusade.

The fcc’s establishment of technical standards for television sets to be equipped with the v-chip is the penultimate step in a long march which has seen its fair share of bluster, hyperbole and soul-searching by all players.

All that remains is for broadcasters to begin encoding their programs with the ratings which will trigger the Canadian-invented v-chip, providing parents with a new tool for monitoring their children’s consumption of television.

From all accounts, the introduction of ratings for tv programs has been a positive development. It has not evolved into the apocalyptic end of freedom of speech and creativity which some critics had argued would be the case.

In Canada, the stylized maple leaf rating icons have been appearing at the beginning of children’s programming, drama and reality-based shows and feature films since the end of September. Canadian broadcasters introduced the on-screen icons as a temporary measure to give them time to work out the technological bugs which were discovered during the 1997 Canadian v-chip and rating system field trial.

Canadian stations generally report no negative reaction from viewers about how they are rating their programs. They point to the fact that the industry self-regulatory organization, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, has yet to be required to step into a dispute over ratings between a station and its viewers.

And given the great donnybrook over Howard Stern, it is clear that Canadians know where to go if they are upset with what’s on the airwaves.

What is even more encouraging from the Canadian broadcaster’s point of view is that there has been no great advertiser backlash over the ratings.

In fact, the advertisers have said publicly that they think the ratings are a positive step, assisting them in fine-tuning the demographic targeting of their messages.

In the u.s, polls indicate overall consumer acceptance of the way American broadcasters are rating their programming, even though a national survey conducted by the Associated Press reported that only 40% of parents say they regularly use the ratings to make viewing decisions for themselves or their children.

There is no equivalent polling data for Canada. But since rating icons have been on screen for only six months compared to a year in the u.s., one could argue that it may be too early to gauge public reaction.

It is worth remembering though, that the broadcast and cable coalition which developed the Canadian rating system did extensive polling before broadcasters introduced it on air. Those surveys reported levels of consumer acceptance of the C, C8+, G, PG, 14+ and 18+ classification system of 80% or better.

Skeptics could suggest the fairly low usage level reported by parents in the u.s. is a clear indication that public concerns about violence on television and program ratings have been overstated.

In the u.s., it does appear that violence has taken a distant back seat to the slippery moral issues of language, nudity and suggestive dialogue. The whole ratings exercise has also been politicized to a far greater degree in the States, with many a Congressional ‘expert’ thundering about what should or should not be on television sets in American rec rooms.

The Canadian agenda though, has been more tightly focused on the violence issue. When Canadian programmers make their decisions on how to rate a program, the way that violence is portrayed is the primary factor in assigning an appropriate rating.

A final assessment of just how well the ratings regime is actually working won’t be known until the v-chip is in widespread distribution in both countries, and broadcasters are encoding their programs to work with tv sets equipped with this blocking technology. These sets are expected to begin coming on the market by the summer of 1999, and one could reasonably expect the encoding to be underway for the new program season that fall.

The fcc sidestepped the Canadian request to have the English and French rating systems included in the built-in v-chip. However, it did encourage manufacturers to design television receivers to provide for additional rating systems.

Optimistically manufacturers will see the economic benefits of including the two Canadian systems in sets built for the North American market. For those older sets in the basement family rooms, it’s expected that standalone v-chip boxes will be developed for consumer purchase, now that the rating systems in both countries have been finalized.

It will take some time to determine if the v-chip will be as effective, and as widely used by parents as its advocates would have us believe. But of one thing there is no doubt, Canadian and u.s. broadcasters are out in front of the rest of the world in dealing with the issue of media violence.

Evidence of increased international interest in the issue can be found in the European Union’s request for tenders for a study on what it has called ‘assistance to be provided for the exercise of parental control over broadcasting services.’