ALVISO, CA – TiVo has announced a new parental control feature that allows parents to limit the shows recorded by the TiVo to only those programs that have been approved by one of two consumer groups – Common Sense Media and the Parents Television Council.While parental controls have been built into TV and cable set-top boxes for years now, TiVo’s CEO Tom Rogers says that current screening technologies and ratings systems have not been widely accessed, because consumers found the tools and ratings difficult to understand and use.

“Ratings have had a marginal effect because parents don’t fully understand how to use them,” Rogers said. “Nor do they bring forward what they want their kids to watch.”

With TiVo’s new family-friendly feature, which is called “KidZone,” parents can choose ratings designated by either Common Sense Media or the Parents Television Council. Once that choice has been made, KidZone allows children in the home to view only the programs which the designated group has deemed to be appropriate for age range selected by the parent who set the parameters.

Using KidZone, parents will also have the option of automatically recording programs identified by the family programming groups as particularly valuable or beneficial to children.

Parents can override the program choices offered by the group whose ratings they choose to go by, or create their own list of prohibited and/or allowable shows. Entering a password allows parents to view programs that are blocked from their child-friendly list, as well.

One thing KidZone does not address is advertising directed at children – another major point of concern for groups like the Parents Television Council. KidZone does not edit out commercials, and offers no method by which to automatically screen or remove the ads, a feature that could have alienated advertisers and TV networks, Rogers said.