In 1993, the four major American broadcast networks (
ABC,
CBS,
Fox, and
NBC) began airing disclaimers before programs with violent content. This came amid increasing concern over the
effects of violence in mass media, and was described by
The Washington Post as an attempt to avoid government-imposed regulations. Three years later, the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, which called upon the entertainment industry to establish, within one year, a voluntary television rating system to provide parents with advance information on material in television programming that might be unsuitable for their children. This rating system would work in conjunction with the
V-chip, a device embedded in television sets that enables parents to block programming they determine to be inappropriate. On February 29, 1996, all segments of the entertainment industry, led by the
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the
National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), joined and voluntarily pledged to create such a system. They agreed that the guidelines would be applied by broadcast and cable networks in order to handle the large amount of programming that must be reviewed – some 2,000 hours a day. The guidelines would be applied episodically to all programming based on their content, except for news, sports and advertising. The industry also created a Monitoring Board, composed of TV industry experts, to ensure accuracy, uniformity and consistency of the guidelines and to consider any public questions about the guideline applied to a particular program. on August 1, 1997, the television industry, in conjunction with representatives of children's and medical advocacy groups, announced revisions to the rating system. Under this revised system, television programming would continue to fall into one of the six ratings categories (TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14 or TV-MA), but content descriptors would be added to the ratings where appropriate, based on the type(s) of objectionable content included in the individual program or episode: D (suggestive dialogue), L (coarse language), S (sexual content), V (violence) and FV (fantasy violence – a descriptor exclusively for use in the TV-Y7 category). Further, the proposal stated that the icons and associated content symbols would appear for 15 seconds at the beginning of all rated programming, and that the size of the icons would be increased. The revised guidelines were supported by leading family and child advocacy groups, as well as television broadcasters, cable systems and networks, and television production companies. Finally, the revised proposal called for five representatives of the advocacy community to be added to the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board. On March 12, 1998, the
Federal Communications Commission found that the Industry Video Programming Rating System was acceptable, and adopted technical requirements for the V-chip. The TV Parental Guidelines have since been voluntarily adopted by
streaming services in the United States, such as
HBO Max, Hulu, and Netflix. These classifications are usually used for non-film programming such as television series (including programs that had previously been aired on television). Films are usually classified using MPA ratings if available, but TV Parental Guidelines-based ratings are typically used as a fallback if the film does not carry an MPA rating. In April 2026, the FCC opened a public review into the TV Parental Guidelines scrutinizing the incorporation of "controversial
gender identity issues" in programming rated as being appropriate for children, a move that has been considered as being part of the
second Trump administration's ongoing
attacks against transgender people. == Ratings ==