Mean streets: has Bochco gone too far this time?

US producer Steve Bochco is an enthusiast for controversy. His cop classics, `Hill Street Blues', `NYPD Blue' and `Murder One' prove that. His new series, `Brooklyn South', which is shown for the first time in America tonight, is his most shocking yet.

A police officer's head explodes after being hit by a sniper's bullet. The gunman is himself shot. An officer kicks his dying body in rage. It is a scene from Steve Bochco's latest television cop drama which has had American fans, critics and pressure groups reaching for the hope, hype and hysteria buttons in equal proportion.

Its notoriety is guaranteed by the fact that it will be the first regular show on an American network to carry a TV-MA rating - an "Adults Only" warning will be shown on screen at the start of the show. NYPD Blue, which picked up three Emmy awards last week, including the third award for best lead actor in a drama (Dennis Franz) in the past four years, has become an American cultural reference point; Brooklyn South looks like dividing the nation.

The programme replaces NYPD Blue's Manhattan detectives with beat-cops, who patrol the mean streets of one of New York's toughest boroughs.

Critics who have seen a preview of the pilot to the 22-part series described the opening 10 minutes in which a drug-fuelled gunman launches a mass killing-spree outside a police station as "brutal". Bochco and CBS, the network that will broadcast the series, are unmoved. Steve Bochco has attacked the TV-MA warning, saying that it makes no sense because he knows a lot of 45-year-old people who are not very mature but who are deemed suitable to watch the show.

"Would I let my kids at the age of 12 watch Brooklyn South? Absolutely. My provision is that I'd watch it with them. I wouldn't want them to watch it alone." His gung-ho approach comes at a sensitive time for the networks. The industry has just emerged from sapping negotiations with a watchful Congress and censorious pressure groups which have been aiming at tighter controls.

Marde Gregory, associate director of the influential UCLA Centre for Communication Policy, which is an authority on TV violence research, says that all network executives now recognise that the issue is not confined to right-wing, religious or partisan groups and political opportunists.

Although studies appear to show that violent content on non-news network television is falling, people's perception is still that there tends to be too much. She adds that the television industry faces a "volatile" situation, but that it has not yet reached the stage where those executives responsible for creating and developing programmes are looking anxiously over their shoulders for Big Brother.

According to Gregory, every TV executive will be watching the consequences of Brooklyn South closely: "They really do act as corporate citizens. They are aware of their position in society and the strength of that position, and they do not ignore that. They also have very strong ties and interest in what Washington does because that is where the decisions about the future are being made.

"There are a number of people in Congress who are truly deeply sensitive to this issue. Some of the Congressmen involved have been enormously serious and really cared. On the other hand, we've heard from some Congress people who are just trying to jump on the bandwagon and score some points."

One result of the debate has been the introduction of new age-based ratings in January. "TV-MA" is the strongest. At first, the networks resisted adopting content labelling as well as the age-based ratings. But by mid- July, after painstaking and complex negotiations with legislators all, except NBC, had caved in. From October 1, the week after Brooklyn South begins, ratings will also carry more detailed descriptions - V (for violence), L (for language), S (for sexual situations), D (for suggestive dialogue) and FV (for fantasy violence in children's programmes).

In return for accepting the content labels, broadcasters received a quid- pro-quo from key members of Congress that no further legislation would be forthcoming for three years, freeing them up to focus on the battle for viewers as opposed to continually watching their backs.

Now Brooklyn South, if it lives up to the pre-launch publicity about its violence, threatens to rock the boat. Opponents are asking: are the ratings worth any more than health warnings on cigarette packets?

The American Family Association, part of the vocal self-styled "Religious Right" nationwide coalition of groups, has already denounced CBS, Bochco and the ratings before the series has even been aired.

Vice President of the group, Tim Wildmon, says: "They are very proud that this show would be extremely violent. Our feeling is that we don't need any more gratuitous violence on network television. It is totally socially irresponsible for CBS to push the limits of TV any further than they already have been pushed.

"If they get away with this, with no punishment from the advertisers, no complaints from the public, then there's going to be more gratuitous violence on TV and they're going to make it more and more graphic. Ratings overall are a bad idea because they give the networks a licence to do things like violence, nudity, sex or profanity under the guise of `We warned you'.

"The basic intentions of most of the people trying to get ratings are good, but I do not think that the intentions are good in Hollywood. I think they are self-serving. Their motives are altogether impure."

Bochco has highlighted the networks' cut-throat battle for viewers and said he had learned his lesson after ABC unexpectedly decided to pull the scheduled six-hour Murder One mini-series finale from this year's April schedule. "Probably the smartest decision I ever made as a creator, notwithstanding the unbelievable amount of hostility and flak it generated, was to make NYPD Blue as forcefully as we did, relative to language and nudity. It got [the audience] in the tent right away."

The series makers did, tacitly at least, acknowledge one error of judgement. Scenes in the pilot were re-shot to include a black police character when it was spotted that all the bad guys were black and virtually all the good ones white.

That apart, Bochco, remains unrepentant. Asked in an earlier interview if he would play the same controversy card with Brooklyn South he said: "Yes, except I don't think it's a card to play anymore. NYPD Blue has created a template that allows us to simply make Brooklyn South to that same standard."

`NYPD Blue' is being shown Mondays, 10pm, C4