The TV Parental Guidelines is a television content rating system in the United States that was first proposed on December 19, 1996, by the United States Congress, the American television industry, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The system was introduced on January 1, 1997, on most major broadcast and cable networks in response to public concerns about increasing amounts of mature content in television programs. The system consists of six age-based ratings, as well as content descriptors specifying content such as suggestive dialogue (D), sexual situations (S), coarse language (L), and/or violence (V).