OTTAWA, Ontario — Parents who worry about what their kids are watching on TV can finally put the V-chip’s electronic filtering technology to work in their own family rooms.
Canadian broadcasters and cable companies started encoding programs for V-chip technology — V for viewer control — for the first time this month.
“The V-chip is now functional in Canada,” says Al MacKay, chairman of the industry coalition Action Group for Violence on Television.
Invisible to viewers, the rating code triggers the chip, which turns the television screen to black if the rating is too high.
That means parents can program the chip to block out shows with violence, coarse language or nudity at the levels they deem inappropriate for their children.
At least 250,000 television sets in homes across the country have V-chips that read the Canadian rating systems used to block programs, the coalition estimates.
Older sets cannot be retrofitted but can be hooked up to a stand-alone V-chip box. MacKay said the industry is working with manufacturers to see that all television sets come equipped with the technology by next year.
