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By Roger Rosenblatt

For Release Monday, July 28 (A.M.)

Television executives announce revamped ratings system to offer more detailed descriptions of program content for concerned viewers. Improvement on last week's system hailed by White House, family-advocacy groups and Congressmen up for re-election.

Executives of the major networks and cable channels said today they spent the past week examining the ratings system that they had agreed to only a week ago and found it insufficiently explicit. That system added letter ratings to the previous system, devised only some months before, that informed viewers as to whether a TV show was G, for general audiences; PG, required parental guidance; 14, suitable for those 14 years of age or older; or M, suitable for mature audiences. The more recent ratings added to the age-group classifications the letters V, S, L, D and FV--to denote violence, sexual content, vulgar language, suggestive dialogue, and fantasy violence in certain cartoons--yet were still not considered safe enough. The newest ratings (examples below) will present so clear a picture of program content, said a TV-network president, "that very busy people will not have to watch the shows themselves."

New ratings abbreviations follow:

WHAHT--women having a hard time. Signifies any show on the Lifetime channel. See also: WHAVHT--women having a very hard time and WHSHATTTSTHOF--women having so hard a time that they set their husbands on fire.

MNEHO--movies nobody ever heard of. Signifies films played on the American Movie Classics (AMC) cable network. Applies also to classics stars such as Jeff Chandler (JC) and Virginia Mayo (VM).

NLF--no longer funny. Signifies Saturday Night Live and Bill Cosby. See also: NF--never funny. Signifies Hogan's Heroes, McHale's Navy, Fish.

ER--signifies that ER is about to appear.

EM--signifies that Ed McMahon is about to appear.

YPDN--young people doing nothing. Signifies Seinfeld and Friends. See also: YPDNOAB--young people doing nothing on a beach (for Baywatch) and YPSNB--young people showing naked behinds (for NYPD Blue).

NPT--noisy people talking. Signifies The McLaughlin Group.

BPT--boring people talking. Signifies Meet the Press, Face the Nation and This Week (no longer with David Brinkley).

DPT--dead people talking. Signifies PBS's NewsHour essays.

MTWDFFCTCOPPVWSAAT--movies that went directly from final cut to cable or pay-per-view without stopping at a theater. Signifies such films as It's Pat and Eddie and those starring Gary Busey or Rutger Hauer. Suitable for shut-ins.

MASPIAMC--movies about sweating people in a Mississippi courtroom. Suitable for those who have never seen a movie before.

YSHTTJOTW--You still have time to jump out the window. Signifies promo for the Jenny Jones Show.

IHB?--Is he breathing? Signifies Robert Stack on Unsolved Mysteries.

AT--signifies that Alex Trebek is about to appear.

MHH--my head hurts. Signifies any daytime show such as Live with Regis & Kathie Lee, Montel Williams, Barney & Friends. See also: MHHSMIGTCIO--my head hurts so much I'm going to chop it off. Signifies the Rosie O'Donnell Show.

W?--Who? Signifies half the stars on MTV. See also: Wimbledon.

W??--What? Signifies The X-Files, Millennium, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Suddenly Susan.

W???--Why? Signifies The Commish, Sinbad, MSNBC.

WWW????--Who, what and why? Signifies A&E's Biography series, with life stories of Loni Anderson and Mr. Ed.

PPWT--perky people with teeth. Signifies 6 a.m. early-morning news shows. See also: Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood.

MYLFTOJT--makes you long for the O.J. trial. Signifies anything on Court TV and CNN's Burden of Proof. See also: WO!HCAL!--Watch out! Here comes a lawyer! Signifies a segment of a news show on which an expert attorney is about to explain a case. Suitable for other lawyers.

R--signifies Riverdance ad is about to appear.

YWIWT-F--you wish it were twenty-four. Signifies 48 Hours. See also: YWIWT--you wish it were thirty (for 60 Minutes) and YWIWT/T--you wish it were 10/10 (for 20/20).

WPWTTFTOFT--when people were trusted to figure things out for themselves. Signifies a documentary about the history of television and the First Amendment, on the History Channel. Suitable for nostalgia buffs.