The black labels that tell families what to expect from network television shows will start to appear on the Internet streams of those shows, too.
The expansion of the TV content ratings system is expected to be announced by the major broadcast networks on Monday morning. The ratings will be included in all episodic streams on Web sites like ABC.com and Fox.com by December, according to people with knowledge of the plan, who insisted on anonymity because it had not yet been made public.
Representatives of the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board, which maintains the system, did not respond to requests for comment.
The announcement on Monday is, among other things, an illustration of the ways that television networks are having to adapt to the Internet, where there has been a surge in the streaming of TV shows. Some sites, notably Hulu, already incorporate the content ratings into their online streams.
The ratings system was set up by the television industry in the mid-1990s to inform families about the content of shows. The industry effort was, in part, a reaction to Congressional complaints about televised depictions of violence, and was modeled after the movie industry’s ratings system.
Most television programmers now participate in the system, though news, sports and some other shows are exempt. The ratings are set by the programmers, which has caused criticism from time to time.
The announcement on Monday will involve ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, as well as the Spanish-language broadcasters Telemundo and Univision. The broadcasters will link to ratings system information through their Web sites. They will rate full episodes, but not clips from the shows.
Many television viewers pay little attention to the ratings, which typically appear in the upper left corner of the screen at the beginning of shows. But the monitoring board’s research has led it to believe that parents use the ratings to determine what shows are appropriate for their children to watch. That same research also indicated that many children were now watching shows on screens other than televisions.