Under that delay, manufacturers would be required to have half the sets sold in America to have blocking technology by July 1999 and all of them by one year later, industry sources said. That's a year later than the FCC proposed last year. The industry estimates it would take four to six years for sets equipped with the v-chip to be in half of the nation's 98 million TV households. There are now 250 million sets in the United States. Blocking technology is also expected to be put into cable set-top boxes and devices that people can buy and attach to their televisions.
Nothing is perfect.
But this technology offers some real tangible benefits to parents who are concerned about the impact of TV violence and sexual content on their children. One advantage is that it will replace the need for mom or dad to resort to more drastic means of controlling their kid's viewing habits, like hiding the TV power cord, or locking the set in the closet. And, the v-chip works. It was successfully tested in Canada last year. With the chip, which is installed by television manufacturers, parents can program their TVs to block violent shows.