A system, method, and computer program product is provided for the selective filtering of objectionable content from a program. The selective filtering of objectionable content from a program is accomplished by applying an encoding process and a decoding process to the audio and/or video signal of the program. The encoding process includes marking potentially objectionable material in the program with filtering information that identifies the type (e.g., audio, violent content, sexual content, etc.) and intensity level (e.g., mild, graphic, extreme, etc.) of the potentially objectionable material using filter codes. The decoding process includes comparing, during the presentation of the program to the user and prior to outputting the audio or displaying the video, the filtering information to filter criteria, which includes user supplied filter settings, to determine whether filtering of the potentially objectionable content (i.e., audio and/or video) should be performed. If filtering is to be performed, the objectionable content in the program is filtered according to the filtering information which, in the preferred embodiment, identifies the start and duration of the filtering and, for filtering of the video of the program, also identifies the display area of the video to be blocked.