DISH Age-Appropriate Ratings System Uses Common Sense
With everything available online and on television, I’m always looking for solutions to help me help my kids make good choices. This month, DISH partnered with Common Sense Media, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids and families thrive in a world of media and technology. The integration of Common Sense Media to the DISH Anywhere platform provides households with age-appropriate ratings and reviews, as well as content ratings that evaluate on a 0–5 scale the degree to which certain topics, including violence, positive role models, sex, and language, are present in a movie or TV show. Until now, you’ve been stuck with the almost purposefully vague TV parental guidelines whose abbreviated DLSV sub-ratings don’t exactly break down why a particular show is rated the way it is.
These welcome new features are available today on DISHAnywhere (DISHAnywhere.com), and will soon be available on DISH Anywhere mobile apps and the DISH Hopper DVR in the coming months.
“DISH continues to improve on its technology to enhance choice and control, all at no additional cost to our customers. Today’s movie and TV ratings do not fully encompass the age appropriateness for each program. Our partnership with Common Sense Media offers families age-appropriate reviews and ratings that make it easy and convenient for parents to make informed decisions on the programs their kids watch.”
– Vivek Khemka, senior vice president of product
DISH Age-Appropriate Ratings System Ratings System and Reviews
Customers using DISHAnywhere.com now can access independently conducted age-based ratings and reviews for thousands of titles. The new ratings system provides a minimum age rating for each title, up to 18 years. Age ratings are followed by a brief overview of what parents should know before their families view a TV series or movie, including a short analysis of how young viewers may react to various aspects of a title’s plot and theme.
To access ratings and reviews, DISHAnywhere.com users can select the newly added Parental Guide page within a program’s profile.
DISH Content Ratings
DISH now features Common Sense Media’s content ratings, which evaluate the content of movies and TV shows on a 0–5 scale. The DISH age-appropriate ratings system evaluated content spans across eight different categories: positive role models, positive messages, sex, violence, educational value, consumerism, language and drinking, drugs, and smoking.
The 0–5 scale represents the degree to which each topic is present in the program. If three dots are highlighted, there is a fair amount of that type of content, whereas five dots indicates a significant amount of that content.
The DISH Anywhere mobile app is available for download on iOS and Android smart phones and tablets, as well as Amazon Fire HDX tablets. For more information on DISHAnywhere.com and the DISH Anywhere mobile app, visit the website.
For more information on how Common Sense Media rates and reviews, visit here.
