Television Content Rating System

Television content rating systems are a method of giving television viewers an idea of the suitability of a television program for children and/or adults. Many countries have their own television rating system, and each country's rating process may differ due to local priorities. Programs are rated by either the organization that manages the system, the broadcaster, or by the content producers themselves.

A rating is usually set for each individual episode of a television series. The rating can change per episode, network, rerun and per country. As such it's impossible to state what kind of rating a program has, without stating when and where this rating applied.

Philippines

In the Philippines, there are only two television ratings; General Patronage and Parental Guidance. A static Parental Guidance digital on-screen graphic appears during the duration of the program if it was rated as such. Live news programs usually do not carry the graphic, with the exception of entertainment news programs. All programs shown on Philippine free-to-air television channels are reviewed by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. The board may suspend or cancel programs, but not revoke broadcast franchises.

United States

The TV Parental Guidelines system was first proposed on December 19, 1996 by the Congress, the television industry and the FCC, and went into effect by January 1, 1997 on most major broadcast and cable networks in response to public concerns of increasingly explicit sexual content, graphic violence and strong profanity in television programs. It was established as a voluntary-participation system, with ratings to be determined by the individually-participating broadcast and cable networks. It was specifically designed to be used with the V-chip, which was mandated to be built into all television sets manufactured since 2000, but the guidelines themselves have no legal force.

The system does not apply to news or sports programming, or commercials. An E/I will be shown during the entirety of some TV-Y shows.