Although the FCC did not mandate this option, I encouraged parents to seek out the ability to block unrated programs in buying a new set, and I lobbied manufacturers to provide this option. I read in the trade press that the television industry was pressuring manufacturers not to provide unrated-program blocking. So I'm delighted that at least one manufacturer was influenced either by my advice or the parents they surveyed and is providing this valuable option to parents. And with the ability to block unrated programs, they can prevent their child from stumbling into horrific images of victims of school shootings or gruesome stories of child molestation and murder. Blocking unrated programs also gives the parents of very young children the power to block everything on TV except programs designated as TV-Y, a useful and reassuring option indeed.
TV can provide wonderful programming for children.
However, its potential for negative influence is enormous. Nothing else of this magnitude of potential harm comes into our homes automatically. At last parents have some control within our own homes, without getting rid of our televisions entirely. How TV and movies frighten children and what we can do to protect them. Children's fright reactions to television news.