TV `CEASE-FIRE' URGED : BOXER CALLS INDUSTRY RATING PLAN A `GOOD START'.

Byline: Keith Marder Daily News Television Writer

Joining a growing list of public officials and national leaders taking sides in the television ratings debate, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Monday that she wants to give the industry's controversial plan a chance to work.

Boxer called for a ``cease-fire'' in the ratings war and echoed the position taken last week by President Clinton, who urged a 10-month trial for the industry plan.

The industry proposal is ``a good start,'' Boxer said.

``You want to make sure there is enough information to guide the family. I'm worried that if it's so detailed, parents will let kids at it and not worry about it,'' Boxer said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. ``I don't think that politicians should be writing the system. Let the industry that is leading the economic recovery do it. We don't need in-fighting. We should continue to work with them.''

The Television Ratings Implementation Group is set to announce details of its age-based ratings proposal on Thursday. Already, the plan has been sharply attacked by other members of Congress and family advocates for failing to give parents enough information to decide what their children should watch.

Boxer said critics of the industry plan ``are trying to make a positive into a negative.

``The entire industry is willing to meet public demand for more information for television,'' she said. ``If you start arguing how to do this, it turns into a very negative argument.''

The television ratings plan to be unveiled Thursday by industry spokesman Jack Valenti is expected to mirror the one he helped develop for the Motion Picture Association of America, which he chairs.

The television ratings system is expected to have a few more age categories, such as TV-K for shows appropriate for children of all ages, but it is not expected to contain the kind of descriptive information about the amount of sex, violence and profanity in each show that children's advocates are seeking. The TV plan also may include a toll-free telephone line for parents' comments.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 called for the implementation of a television ratings system and the installation in sets of v-chips enabling blocking by February 1998. The industry has until Feb. 8 to submit its ratings proposal to the Federal Communications Commission, which is required to take public and expert input and then approve or reject the plan. If rejected, the FCC then must appoint a second commission to develop an alternative plan.

In the face of rising criticism last week, however, Valenti said the industry would implement its system without seeking FCC approval and would challenge in court any attempt by the government to intervene.