Not sex ’n’ violence again! But they’re so boring! Or at least the endless, po-faced discussions of how or whether they may be kept off television would be boring if it were not for the ludicrous public spectacle they afford. On the one side is the inevitably comic Grundyism of those who devote their lives to counting up the number of times someone says the word ass in the family hour of prime time (twenty-nine times in the month of February, according to Thomas Johnson of the Parents’ Television Council); on the other side is the nauseating hypocrisy involved in the cash-engorged television networks’ striking attitudes as idealistic defenders of free speech. It is a farce which pushes that of the complementary priggeries of pro- and anti-tobacco forces off the stage.

Now, however, all the huffing and puffing have produced a concrete result. As of October 1, the voluntary ratings system for network television shows, in effect only since the beginning of the year, will be supplemented with additional information, about the “intensity” and frequency of offensive material, designed to help parents more finely to calibrate their regulation of their children’s television viewing habits. The networks fiercely resisted any amendments to the age-based rating system— devised last year with the help of Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America who designed a similar system for the movies back in the 1960s. But this system had come under such withering criticism from would-be congressional