The V-chip and Commercials
The V-chip has provided parents and guardians the ability to monitor and block television shows that are unfavorable for children to watch in specific households by reading the information that is encoded in the rated program and blocking it based upon that rating it has been given. However, due to the increasing variety of technology that is being developed and used in the household, parents are concerned that their children will be exposed to the same content they are trying to block through unrated commercials. Because commercials are not rated, the V-chip does not have the ability to censor lewd or inappropriate commercials. This raises issues because children can see the same content that they are blocked on regular shows while watching commercials. This causes the V-Chip to be ineffective unless it applies to both television programs as well as commercials.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) disagrees with creating a V-chip for commercials because it would block commercials and therefore be "economically ruinous for content providers, especially broadcasters." Blocking certain commercials from being viewed will be detrimental financially to broadcasters as well as ad companies.
The ANA also believes that rating thousands of commercials due to a select amount being inappropriate would be a waste of time. This would be seen as a clear example of "regulatory overkill." The ad industry also already has guidelines in which commercials with sensitive matter have to follow and abide by. It also self-regulates which programs certain types of ads can be placed in. As far as it is concerned, these programs are very effective and do not need any modification or alteration.
Because rating commercials globally would be a difficult task, a possible suggestion would be to limit inappropriate commercials and promotions shown at certain times that children watch television. In order to give children some protection from seeing inappropriate commercials, certain improvements to the V-Chip should made that can follow the same standard across all areas of media that include "broadcast, cable, satellite, DVRs and, to the extent possible, the Internet."
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