Parents Television Council
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The Parents Television Council (PTC) is a US-based nonprofit organization. Its campaigns include cable choice which allows subscribers to select and pay for only those channels they watch; holding advertisers accountable for the television programs their ads support; and trying to protect children from television content they find "harmful and negative." Currently, the PTC's approximately 1.1 million members account for over 99% of complaints filed with the FCC.[citation needed]
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[edit] History
PTC was founded in 1995 by longtime political activist L. Brent Bozell III. Bozell is a prominent conservative activist who has, among other things, served as Executive Director of the Conservative Victory Committee, a political action committee that has supported the election of dozens of conservative candidates over the past ten years. He was also National Finance Chairman for Pat Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign, and later President of the National Conservative Political Action Committee.
Bozell was succeeded as PTC President by Timothy F. Winter [1], a self-described liberal, in January 2007. Winter served as Executive Director of the PTC for three years prior to becoming president. Prior to joining the PTC, Mr. Winter's 20-year career as a media executive included positions with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and NBC.
The PTC's activities extend to evaluation, rating, and educating around broadcast TV programs according to a "traffic light" system across three categories of Sex, Violence and Profanity, accumulating to an overall rating based on the ratings of these three categories. A green light indicates that the program is entirely safe for family viewing, a yellow light indicates that parental guidance is suggested, and a red light indicates that the PTC does not recommend the program for family viewing. [2] Every television season, the council releases a list of the best and worst prime-time television programs for family viewing based on their traffic light system. [3] They also lead a national advocacy effort to make people aware of what they consider offensive program content.
[edit] Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show controversy
PTC's prominence became evident after analysis of complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) underlined in Congressional hearings into the Janet Jackson Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, in which one of Jackson's breasts, covered only by a nipple-shield, was momentarily displayed on network television; FCC chairman Michael Powell stated that the number of indecency complaints to the FCC had risen from 350 in the years 2000 and 2001, to 14,000 in 2002 and 240,000 in 2003.
Twenty percent of the complaints lodged with the FCC in 2003 were filed by PTC members; and discounting Janet Jackson related complaints, 99.8% are made through PTC's web site. The counterpart to the PTC in the UK is Mediawatch, an organisation apparently having a membership of some 40,000 people, but which has a much smaller impact than its American cousin.
[edit] "Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger" controversy
In May 2005 Carl's Jr. introduced its "Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger" in a television advertisement featuring celebrity Paris Hilton in a swimsuit, soaping up a Bentley automobile while leaning on it, and then eating the burger.
The Parents Television Council and other media watchdog groups criticized the commercial. Melissa Caldwell, PTC's research director, said, "This commercial is basically soft-core porn. The way she moves, the way she puts her finger in her mouth—it's very suggestive and very titillating." The group said they planned to mobilize more than one million members to contact the restaurant chain and voice their concern.
Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr., says the group needs to "get a life...This isn't Janet Jackson—there is no nipple in this," referring to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy. He continued, "There is no nudity, there is no sex act — it's a beautiful model in a swimsuit washing a car."
In addition to featuring the ad on their web site, Carl's Jr. also set up another website playing a longer version of the commercial. A similar ad with Hilton for Hardee's hamburger chain was aired in June 2005.
[edit] National Nip/Tuck campaign
In 2003, the Parents Television Council urged parents to petition Nip/Tuck for its "unbelievable" content. In 2004, they continued, and pushed harder when a threeway scene aired. In 2005, another threeway scene and a significant increase in sexual content caused the Parents Television Council to push Nip/Tuck into a national campaign, urging advertisers to cease sponsorship of the program. In a letter to the PTC, a Mitsubishi Motors executive responded, “We certainly have no desire to offend consumers with our advertising, which is meant to entertain and inform potential customers about the benefits of purchasing our products. With this in mind, we have decided to discontinue advertising on ‘Nip/Tuck.’” Thirty other adverters pulled their advertising from the show. Others did not pull their support.
[edit] Criticism
With 1,000,000 members and growing, and the impact they have on the media, the Parents Television Council has the subject of criticism by television viewers across the United States. They have been accused of conservative bias, as although their stated goal is to guide parents about whether television programming is appropriate for children, the PTC goes beyond that goal by lobbying the FCC for indecency enforcement or advertisers to stop advertising on the inappropriate show. [4] Many have questioned the logic of this organization with the development of the V-Chip and the viewer's ability simply to watch other programming on television or not watch with children. Frederick S. Lane, author of the 2006 book The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture, and the organization TV Watch support such arguments, claiming that decency is strictly a personal and parental responsibility, not of the government or PTC. Regarding the V-Chip, however, the organization counters that in recent reports, the networks offer inaccurate ratings of their shows, making the V-Chip useless. [5] On March 15, 2007, the PTC also released a news release claiming that the media's campaign to promote the V-Chip has failed. [6]
[edit] Inaccurate, biased reporting on the media
Other accusations of conservative bias includes their tendency to make biased, inaccurate statements and take taboo subject matter of certain television shows out of context. For example, its criticism [7] against Cartoon Network for allowing its late-night block of adult-themed cartoons, Adult Swim, which normally begins 10:30 PM in the Eastern Time Zone, to air at 8:30 PM in the Mountain Time Zone without regards to airtime differences within cable television and satellite television, as normally networks airing within the Mountain Time Zone air shows promoted in the Central Time Zone time delayed locally.
The council has also made numerous criticisms against Comedy Central's adult-themed, satirical animated series South Park without examining the episode's context. In November 2004, the Council released a study on violence, sex, and profanity on cable television channels [8]. Among the programs mentioned in the study were the South Park episode "It Hits the Fan", which used the expletive shit 162 times, and the even more profane movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. No context was given whatsoever of these episodes, which would have made the episodes more acceptable to the council as well as to readers of the PTC web site. The April 20, 2006 edition of founder L. Brent Bozell's weekly column on the PTC web site also makes several inaccurate claims regarding the South Park two-part episode "Cartoon Wars". Although it mentions the episode satires the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy within a certain television show, it fails to mention that the show satired was Family Guy, a show criticized numerous times by the PTC for its adult content easily available to underage viewers. The article also leaves out Viacom's ironic decision to allow the South Park episode "Super Best Friends", which depicts Muhammad uncensored, in broadcast station syndication that is far more accessible on television, possibly because the article was written several days before it was decided the episode would air in syndication on April 27 in most markets. The article even goes as far as to condemn the American Civil Liberties Union for awarding Comedy Central president Doug Herzog for allowing South Park to air objectionable content in the name of the First Amendment and artistic expression. Despite reports on mass media outlets including on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now [9] claiming that the episode "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" used racial epithet "nigger" for a message against racism, the PTC still included that episode in their "Worst Cable Content of the Week" as of March 14, 2007 (the content having been removed from the PTC website afterwards for copyright reasons, but still archived on Google cache as of April 4 [10]) as support for their campaign for “a la carte” cable television services. Not only did the PTC include the use of the racial slur as evidence, but also scenes that included a character's exposed buttocks and other profanities.
Another example is their report on their "Top 10 Best and Worst Shows on Primetime Network TV", which ranked the FOX Network sitcom Married... with Children #1 on their "The Top Ten Least Family-Friendly Shows for the 1996-97 Television Season" list. It made a biased statement claiming: "Married again leads the list of least family-friendly programs. During its final season on the air (thankfully), the 'Bundys,' for a short while, brought their disgusting brand of 'family values,' which included insulting other family members, crude jokes, and bathroom humor, to young viewers at 7:00 p.m. Sundays."[11] The report made a completely biased statement claiming that it was "Thankfully" the show's last season on the air, which would have likely put many fans down.
[edit] Homophobia
Some critics, such as Advertising Age columnist Simon Dumenco, have been quick to point out that the PTC is homophobic because of its criticisms in the past condemning homosexuality on television and media, such as criticsms against the NBC sitcom Will & Grace [12] [13], Marvel Comics [14], a documentary covering same-sex marriage on the Bravo Network [15], and the GLAAD for attempting to promote homosexuality as "moral" [16]. The PTC has countered such allegations in the December 26, 2005 edition of their weekly "Culture Watch" feature, claiming that they are "not homophobic", but simply opposed to "sexual references or innuendo (of any variety, hetero, homo or other) aired where children might be exposed to them." In fact the PTC has actually condemned homophobia in the media as well, such as in a review for the controversial computer game Postal 2 [17] and in the February 1, 2007 edition of L. Brent Bozell's weekly column covering the incident where Isaiah Washington, an actor in ABC series Grey's Anatomy, called a gay actor of the show a "faggot".
[edit] Favor for Judeo-Christian religions
Many times, the organization was accused of being intolerant toward other religions besides Judeo-Christian religions. Primarily, the organization protests disrespect of Judeo-Christian religions only. L. Brent Bozell once wrote in his column that the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy was "silly". [18]
[edit] Criticism of L. Brent Bozell
PTC founder and former president L. Brent Bozell has been criticized for his conservative views on the media within the PTC as well as in the Media Research Center. Criticisms toward him include allegations of "fighting the First Amendment" [19] and cursing at liberal commentator Paul Waldman after argument over Waldman's views on The O'Reilly Factor.
[edit] References
- Activists Dominate Content Complaints — Mediaweek story on the PTC
- Carl's Jr. not sorry for SpicyBurger commercials
[edit] See also
- Media Research Center
- Mary Whitehouse, founder of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, the forerunner of the UK's Mediawatch.
- Right to Censor, a WWF parody of the organization
