Peoria Il

After months of controversy on Capitol Hill, the debate over the television industry's on-air parental guidelines today is moving to the viewers for whom they were intended: 300 families from Peoria, Ill., the city that is synonymous with Middle American values and market research, will rate the ratings in a televised, "Oprah"-style congressional hearing.

Network executives said that they expect some TV shows will be re-rated from TV-PG to TV-14 as a result of Monday night's stormy session with parents here over the content of programming and the industry's ratings guidelines. "There's no question that more shows need to be rated TV-14," Rosalyn Weinman, NBC's senior vice president for broadcast standards and content policy, said in an interview Tuesday.

The Roman Catholic Diocese is defying the national trend that shows the number of priests in a steady decline. In the last year, the diocese ordained 13 priests, a number that ranks it among archdioceses 10 times its size. Peoria is "clearly an aberration," said Lawrence Young, a Brigham Young University sociologist who has studied Catholic seminary and ordination trends. The situation in Peoria may be highly unusual in the church today.

After months of controversy on Capitol Hill, the debate over the television industry's on-air parental guidelines today is moving to the viewers for whom they were intended: 300 families from Peoria, Ill., the city that is synonymous with Middle American values and market research, will rate the ratings in a televised, "Oprah"-style congressional hearing.

Network executives said that they expect some TV shows will be re-rated from TV-PG to TV-14 as a result of Monday night's stormy session with parents here over the content of programming and the industry's ratings guidelines. "There's no question that more shows need to be rated TV-14," Rosalyn Weinman, NBC's senior vice president for broadcast standards and content policy, said in an interview Tuesday.

The Roman Catholic Diocese is defying the national trend that shows the number of priests in a steady decline. In the last year, the diocese ordained 13 priests, a number that ranks it among archdioceses 10 times its size. Peoria is "clearly an aberration," said Lawrence Young, a Brigham Young University sociologist who has studied Catholic seminary and ordination trends. The situation in Peoria may be highly unusual in the church today.