ABSTRACT
In Canada and the United States, the design and development of program rating systems, planned to be used in conjunction with so-called V-chip technologies, was not undertaken by public authorities or by boards or task forces representative of a variety of groups in society, but was undertaken by select parts of the broadcasting industry. In the United States, only if the system proposed by the industry was seen to be unacceptable to the regulator, would the public authority appoint a representative advisory committee to designate a system or informally pressure the industry group to try again. In Canada, no other strategy than that of seeking a voluntary ratings system from industry groups was proposed in public documents.
