It occured to me today that we need ratings for ads on tv. They have ratings on all the shows. With these I can use the digital cable box to block programming by rating, by channel or by title. But unfortunately there is no way for me to preemptively block ads that I don’t want my kids to see. For example, I let my 10 year old son watch King of the Hill. This is a very funny show, that amazingly is made by the same guy who created Beavis and Buthead. They show re-runs of older episodes on F/X on weeknights at 6 and 6:30 pm. For some reason, they run commercials for a male-enhancement dietary supplement called enzyte during this time. They also run ads for another F/X show called nip-tuck. Nip-tuck is a really lame “drama” that runs after 10pm and is totally inappropriate for young kids. The promo is almost inappropriate. I watched about 10 minutes of one episode once. I am not a prude, but I won’t watch this show. It is just plain lame. I don’t want my kids watching it and I have it blocked. But there is no way for me to block the commercials. Another example is ads for movies. I don’t really want my kids seeing ads for crap like Doom and Saw II. These movies have absolutely no redeeming qaulities and neither one should be advertised on prime time or earlier tv. If there were ratings for ads I could readilly block this crap, but of course the networks will never allow this because it would destroy their revenue stream. But frankly I don’t care. As much as I pay for cable every month, I wan’t some way around this.