Is anyone who reads ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY likely to be affected by the recently announced television ratings system? Not hardly. Those few producers interested in pushing at the boundaries of conventional good taste and mannerly subject matter (as well as the advertisers who subsidize their shows) are probably not going to suffer by having their programs branded with a designation such as TV-14 (''Parents Strongly Cautioned'') or TV-M (''Mature Audiences Only''). That's because the makers of the shows that fit these categories don't care about kids watching anyway: A series like NYPD Blue seeks to attract grown-ups to its cop tales, and during its hour, advertisers pitch products like cars and antacid tablets that don't find buyers among your average under-17s.
As for the notion that parents all across this great land are going to start banning their tykes from any show not rated TV-G (''General Audience'') or begin splitting hairs about the possible harmful effects of a show labeled TV-PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''), well, two things occur: (1) That ain't gonna happen on any mass scale (see my doctoral treatise ''Mass Communication and Birth Units: Go Watch Something on TV and Get Outta My Hair!''), and (2) if it does, jolly good for America.
Anything that discourages young folk from watching more TV is a beneficial thing. While the best of TV programming offers entertainment at least equal to the best movies or novels being released, you also know damn well that most TV, like most movies and books, wastes time and brain cells. Any family-seeking sitcom that wants a TV-G rather than a TV-PG rating will probably need do no more than excise the sprinkling of by-now-routine butt and barf yuks, as well as -- have you noticed the trend this season? -- completely out-of-nowhere lesbian jokes deployed to suggest hipness but succeeding only at irritating cluelessness.
No, the only real drawback I see to these ratings is that their acceptance may reflect glory upon the insufferable strutting blowhard who announced them -- Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti. For decades, Valenti has been depressingly successful in positioning himself as a centrist voice of reason rather than being properly ridiculed as a double-breasted shill always ready to support whatever stance will most comfort the interests of entertainment fat cats. Valenti ought to have a sticker affixed to his forehead with another new rating: TV-IS (''Totally Vacuous-Industry Stooge'').
