Pay television content descriptors

The pay television content descriptors are a content advisory system that was developed by the American pay television industry. It is designed to give viewers an idea of the type(s) of content included in films, specials and television programs that are broadcast by premium television and pay-per-view services, particularly to allow parents or guardians to gauge whether a particular program is inappropriate for viewing by minors under the age of 18 (based on the degree of the content and the age of the viewer).

Content descriptors are primarily applied to feature films with a minimum rating of "PG" as per the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system or programs with a TV Parental Guideline rating of "TV-PG".

Like the TV Parental Guidelines, which this system predates and is used alongside, the content ratings were established as a voluntary participation system, with the assigned ratings for each program determined by the individually participating subscription television networks. The system's creation was spurred by concerns from parents over the amount of violent content in television programs, particularly those seen on premium cable channels. Prior to the system's implementation, premium services only provided information on potentially objectionable content via the listings magazines that were supplied to their subscribers. In January 1994, representatives from the cable television industry decided to develop a voluntary rating system for television programs, with premium channels ultimately opting to develop a system to rate all types of program content that may be considered inappropriate for children.

Prior to the creation of the content descriptions, premium television services did not reference the content within a film, television series or special on-air (though program guides provided by the pay cable channels did reference the type of content in each program); instead pay channels usually only used vague explanations of adult content using the program rating (for example, "The following movie has been rated "PG-13" by the Motion Picture Association of America, some material may be inappropriate for young children, parents may wish to consider whether it should be viewed by those under 13"). After the announcement of the content system's development, Time Warner-owned premium channels HBO and Cinemax, and Viacom-owned Showtime and The Movie Channel (both now owned by CBS Corporation) began incorporating text descriptions during ratings bumpers aired prior to the start of a film, television series or special, immediately after information on the rating and features (i.e., the inclusion of closed captioning, a second audio program language feed and/or stereophonic sound) of a program (in either a single-page or dual-page format, depending on the service).

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