Parents Can Take Control By Programming Cable Box

By Richard Mullins, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Jan. 15–TAMPA — Cable TV companies are working to prove they are family-friendly and are launching their own “family tier” of channels that they say won’t have sex or violence.

But the best way to make TV fit your tastes is to program your cable box and block the channels you don’t like. Cable TV and TV manufacturers are trying to make this easier and less confusing.

Newer digital cable systems can block channels for specific times or block individual shows.

Parents also can set up children’s cable TV boxes with different channels from the ones in their bedrooms. Cable companies will walk customers step-by-step through parental controls on their cable boxes.

For customers with cable-ready TVs and no cable box, most cable companies will send special filtering equipment for little or no cost, or install “traps” on cable lines outside that block selected channels. The cable industry recently set up a Web site that shows parents how to block channels on a variety of cable boxes and systems: www.controlyourtv.org.

Cable companies don’t disclose how many customers use such controls. A poll in November of 513 parents by the New York group TV Watch found only 17 percent use cable controls and 12 percent use controls on their satellite TV systems.

All TVs larger than 13 inches sold in the United States after January 2000 must contain a V-chip that reads special signals embedded in shows and blocks those with things such as sex and violence.

Only 15 percent of parents use the chips, according to a 2004 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, and many are confused about how to use them. About 40 percent think their new TV doesn’t have a V-chip, although the sets probably do.

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