Transitions are a part of every life; and moving forward into a new stage, while a cause for celebration for the one making the move, can often be difficult for those left behind. For it’s humorous, heartwarming depiction of such transitions, ABC’s The Middle has been named the Best TV Show of the Week.
Read more →In response to the growing tide of Americans sick of media violence, the Motion Picture Association of America launched “Check the Box,” which it claimed would help consumers. But in fact, the new campaign was meaningless. PTC President Tim Winter recently discussed what a movie ratings system OUGHT to look like.
Not too long ago, it would have been absolutely unthinkable for a broadcast television network – required by law to operate “in the public interest,” and terrified of alienating viewers and advertisers – to propose a prime-time series making a hero out of a serial killer.
Read more →“The dirty little secret at MTV is that their demo is not 22-year-old college students. Their demo is 12, 13-year-old kids, 14-year-old boys and girls who are often home alone and unsupervised.” — Rachel Campos-Duffy, a cast member on MTV’s The Real World: San Francisco (CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, January 21,2011)
Read more →The UK’s Telegraph recently reported concerns raised by Equity, the union representing actors, about actors being asked to strip down for casting sessions due to the increased presence of sexual content and nudity on television.
Read more →Americans tend to think of the British as genteel and proper; but TV networks in the UK are just as dedicated to pushing questionable content on families as American ones…as viewers of that country’s Britain’s Got Talent learned recently.
Read more →The cable industry has long made billions of dollars off of customers with its practice of “bundling” – forcing each subscriber to pay for hundreds of channels they don’t want to get a few they do. But TV channels aren’t the only things the companies “bundle.”
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For over a decade, the cable industry has maintained a united front on the issue of Cable Choice, determined to preserve the status quo – continuing to charging consumers for “bundles” of networks they never watch and don’t want. But now, some cracks in the alliance are beginning to show.
Read more →Just when you think the media has gone as low as it can, it surprises you.
This week, multiple online news sites DEFENDED pop star Ke$ha’s drinking her own urine on MTV – and attacked the PTC for saying people shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Read more →We’ve just come out of Upfronts season, a dog and pony show where the networks fly their top stars to New York City to mingle with advertisers in an attempt to convince sponsors to commit advertising dollars “upfront,” ahead of the fall season. Sponsors are wined and dined and given a preview of what’s...
Read more →How many times have you heard it argued that television content providers are just delivering what audiences want? That since networks are in the business to make money, they would never air content that would drive away viewers, and so if you’re offended by what you see, you must be in the minority.
If that’s...
Read more →After Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Girls, Girlfriends, Cashmere Mafia, Hot in Cleveland, Pretty Little Liars, Golden Girls, Designing Women, Sisters… what TV has really been lacking is more shows about four girlfriends, “each on her own path to self-discovery.” So ABC is giving us Mistresses.
Although the female foursome has been done, and...
Read more →Remember the oh-so-earnest PSA featuring Hollywood celebrities in the aftermath of Newtown, calling for Americans to “demand a plan” for dealing with violence? Hollywood’s plans evidently didn’t involve curtailing on-screen violence. According to published reports, the esteemed Cannes film festival’s preview trailer showcases some intensely, “ultra-violent” films.
“First came a scene from Nicolas...
Read more →Millions of Americans will be enthused about Senator McCain’s Cable Choice bill…but ESPN President John Skipper isn’t.
ESPN is far and away the most expensive of the basic cable channels. Dishonestly attempting to shrug off McCain’s bill, Skipper recently opined that “the cost for a family of four to go to dinner and a movie...
Read more →In reward for turning Sunday nights into a wasteland of violence, sex, and sleaze with his ultra-raunchy cartoons, Fox has given Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane his first live-action show.
Read more →Last month, the FCC asked for public comments on its new policy of taking action only against “egregious” violations of broadcast decency law. The deadline was May 20th. Though nearly 100,000 Americans filed comments demanding the agency enforce current standards, the FCC has extended the deadline – because the entertainment industry told them to.
Read more →In the sex-obsessed world of TV, the sex topic du jour on TV is virginity.
Recent plot lines on Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and New Girl have centered around characters’ first sexual encounters, chastity vows, and a man confiding to a date that he has never had sex.
Though superficially this may seem like a positive development...
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With only 10 days left for the public to comment on the FCC’s plan to limit enforcement of broadcast decency only to cases the FCC thinks are “egregious,” the PTC is urging the public to spread the word via Twitter.
http://w2.parentstv.org/Main/News/Detail.aspx?docID=2798
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The outgoing chairman of the FCC wants to change the rules on what kind of content can be subject to enforcement action by the commission.
Under current standards, any content that fits the legal definition of “indecent,” i.e. “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive...
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Those who run TV networks cannot seem to decide whether showing a violent TV episode after a real-life tragedy is a good idea or not.
Read more →With TV networks constantly pumping ever-more explicit violence, nudity, and graphic sex over the publicly-owned airwaves, it is nice to find one TV station that still understands the concept of operating “in the public interest.”
Read more →PTC Advisory Board member Paul Porter, founder of Rap Rehab and Industry Ears, scored two notable victories against the bigotry and foul content rampant in the entertainment industry this week.
Read more →On Wednesday, President Obama nominated Thomas Wheeler as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, stating, “Tom knows this stuff inside and out.” But the PTC isn’t so sure.
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Even as they were meeting with Vice-President Biden in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Newtown and promising to help curb media violence, TV network bosses were busy pumping more violence over the public airwaves – as AP’s David Bauder reports.
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