The Dangers Of “Family” Broadcast TV Shows

This is family policy matter program is produced by the North Carolina family policy Council of profamily research and education organization dedicated to strengthening and preserving the family, and often the studio hears John Rushton, president of the North Carolina family policy Council, thank you for joining us this week. Profamily policy matters. It is our you to have winter with us on the program is president of the parents television Council, a nonpartisan media watchdog and education organization. PPC just released a new study analyzing the content of so-called family shows on broadcast television and found that a whopping 99% of the most popular shows about family life contain adult content that is not appropriate for children to be talking with Tim today about those findings as well as how parents can best protect their children from inappropriate content on television. Tim welcome to the program.

It's so great to have you back with us on the show junket data unit listeners. It's a pleasure to be with you and I hope by everybody having a wonderful and joyous holiday season. Well thank you and we hope you do the same to him tell us briefly about the new study remembering family insights and new research on family and media was the purpose of the study. How many programs did you look at and what kinds of programming was included of the purpose of this study was to really help parents get an understanding of what's on television was on primetime broadcast television that features family as a an integral part of the plot line the storylines to these broadcast TV shows in the Hollywood makes very bold statement in that they want to bring families, children and so forth to their television programming as per the television part of plots and so forth. In order to bring a broader audience to the show and what we wanted to see was our shows that are about families safe for family-friendly viewing and family what we learned is it is that these problems are just because there about families doesn't mean that they're safe for families to watch what type of programming did you look at in conducting the study.

Any broadcast television show that featured family as is integral to the overall show itself. Some of these were were comedy some of them were dramas that included everything from the usually explicit family guy and even sometimes explicit The Simpsons and can definitely animate shows that are very edgy to shows like dads the Goldbergs mom the Millers again shows that are are mostly situation comedies but also shows like Blue Bloods which is a pay police drama with Tom Selleck that is one of the rare instances where there shall have families, displaying some sort of faith in a positive way. So it really was come across across the board, drama sitcoms, but due to her prime time shows that they are when no one families traditionally sit and watch television together and ended her over the publicly owned airwaves are not cable shows either broadcast of the most disturbing findings from the study is that a majority of television shows that are touted as family programs actually include a great deal of sexual content.

Tell us what she found regarding the amount of sexual content in many of these TV shows some examples. If you would, of course, remembering that in our audience. We have some younger ears that are listening when you think about watching a show about families with your family. You think it's something that you could do safely what we found is that of the shows about families. Believe it or not, 81% of the shows about families contained sexual content, other sexual content could be something like dialogue. It could be depictions or descriptions of of sexual behavior and conduct.

It even includes believe it or not, some nudity where you know certain parts of the body are pixelated. But in her blurred but when you look at the show. It really can be quite a shock if you are sitting down with your family watching a show about families thought to be hit in the face with with nudity nets that we, very troubling, very vexing and that we wonder what the TV networks are thinking when they feel that the part of shows about family, they have to include some very graphic central content.

Well, it certainly is a babe great concern in this, the parent of two teenagers is something that my wife and I are always on the lookout for her because you never know. Especially with some of the program, not just the shows themselves, but the networks that promoted as you know such and such family that it's a family network and those seem to be in some cases the worst offenders. Indeed, you know you have not HBO or Cinemax or showtime where you know what you pay extra money if you want to watch that kind of stuff due to the broadcast TV networks that use the publicly owned airwaves to bring their Singletary home in the country and the networks victim in a most of us who are like us to bring our baby boomer category don't tell you which switch into the category of baby boomers grew up watching a lot of the stuff that the Golden age of television on our broader primetime broadcast network.

I remember no Sunday night being able to watch the wonderful world of Disney as a youngster and each of Omaha's wild Kingdom and the boy talk a little wild kingdom. It's a different type of welcome to mother now in the publicly owned airwaves will absolutely also found that some of the most explicit content including profanity occurs on programs that are supposed to be more family-friendly including animated programs, some of which you've already mentioned, tell us about the issues that you found an end on this is really something that's that's interesting when we look at it long term themes here in Hollywood.

I had the pleasure to work for NBC for 15 years in my career and during my lifetime, and NBC. I don't ever remember once hearing any viewer ever say that was a good show but it would've been even better if you puts more pain words and there you know good show, a show that is is attracting audiences on the Mets will produce will direct, well written, well acted, and it does not require constant profanities and now on television. We hear the constant bleeping of swearwords and sometimes producers even insert bleeps, even if there weren't swearwords used just a creepy impression that there was profanity. It really is concerning troubling and what we found in the study of the shows about families 94% of these programs contain some amount of profanity and you'd think that a show, especially some of these very in a family centric shows would be able to entertain the public without using a four letter words well and I think one of the most disturbing findings from the study is that some of the most profane and explicit content is actually being delivered by child actors only shows this is really alarming yet finish. This also seems to be a very new trend here in Hollywood. But it's growing and will try to stay very on much on top of this issue and and make sure they were holding those broadcasters any advertisers that sponsor these programs accountable for not just airing the per the profanity in the explicit content, but now that they have the child actors the child characters actually delivering some of the most prudent and explicit content in the entire program.

This is new. This is troubling and if you're a child watching you know your parents are telling you to be behave and do the right thing and be honorable and respectful and you turn on TV you see other children doing the exact opposite. The messages the children are very conflicting and even the most diligent parent try to communicate as clearly as they can their values to their child. There is an impact on that child's perspective is no maybe my parents think this way but look how everybody else thinks that it is a very negative impact and it's again a very troubling trend. Well, certainly, so the PTC study also shows that many of these television programs about families that contain explicit content are actually rated PG but are missing a writing descriptor. What is the rating descriptor and how was it supposed to work the VM. The television industry at the best of of our federal government. About 20 years ago came up with this V-chip, which is inside every television set that is supposed to be able to help parents block unwanted programming that's also just like we go to the movie theaters got in a PG movie or a PG-13 movie that's supposed to guide you in terms of what type of content you can expect. So you're not blindsided by stuff that you don't really inappropriate things. Age inappropriate things. It folks might find offensive to the TV industry followed along what we see in the motion picture industry. Every show is rated family is rated by the networks themselves original independent body rating the shows of the networks decide for themselves what the content rating will be others similar to what you see in movies, TV PG TV 14 etc. but they also have descriptors to help parents understand what type of materials in the show deeper dialogue dreamers explicit dialogue or suggestive dialogue L for language, meaning there's profanity and in the show estimating section V meeting violence ODL SVR. The four descriptors and what we found is that across the street shows there was a huge amount of inaccurate content rating going on where descriptors were entirely missing 30% of the shows rated PG did not accurately warn parents of of what the content was on these on his explicit shows that you know. Again, we would've thought would be prevented from reviewing what you know it. It seems that there's not a lot of truly family-friendly content on broadcast television that families can sit down as you described your experiences growing up in mine as well to sit down with your family and watch together. It's wholesome, it's good, it's enjoyable, entertaining, fun, but it is, you know, in large part, void of all the types of things that we've been discussing today. Advice can you offer to parents. How can they guard against some of the exposure to the types of things we can talk about today. First thing the parents must understand is that much of this material is on broadcast television today truly is harmful to children. So if you start from the standpoint of we take so much care and so many other aspects of our children and grandchildren's lives in a we we put in car seats and we try to feed them healthy foods would try to make sure their good go to good schools and we do the best we can to keep them safe.

This is something that they need to also be safe and protected from in terms of education, you have to know that you have to be aware of the content that's out there.

Make sure that your aware what your children are consuming in the form of media, not just televisions, but today there bombarded 24 seven by electronic media through cell phones and tablets and in videogame games and more in the second thing, in addition to being educated and involved as being an activist you don't have to stand for this. As the status quo you can you can join your voice with that with others around the country through the PTC or through other organizations and speak up, speak out hold those accountable who produce an error and and underwrite stuff that's harmful urgently need parents to be aware to be mindful to be involved in the user voice and speak up and speak out and I think it's helpful for parents to understand for concerned citizens to understand what you stated a number of times during our discussion today that the broadcast Airways for radio and television are owned by the public and we really do have a civic responsibility to speak out when those airwaves are being used in a manner that is contrary to what we believe is in the best interest of our children and our families and our societies.

I know that the parents television Council offer some great resources for helping parents to get involved with photos where they can find a copy of the study, remembering family and also give us the website for the PTC itself. The beauty of the war try to do is put everything in one stop shopping for everyone and all of the information is available on our website which is www.parents TV PA Re: NTS parents TV.org and from our homepage there. You can learn more about the studies that the research report we just talked about this the this remembered families research report. You can learn about how to be an activist. We have a family guide to television programming is kind of like a TV Guide but instead of just telling you what.

Here's what the plot is of the show, we can we can share with you. Here are the types of concerning content amid a parent might encounter, watching the show with her children.

So all that is their parents TV.org and it really is a very powerful resource in terms of education and activism and you can learn how to become more involved.

If you'd like to membership in the PTC is free.

We invite your for your your listeners to be members and get our weekly emails can be more informed, more educated, more enlightened and more involved in helping to solve something that really needs to be solved well and we would certainly encourage all of our listeners to avail themselves of those resources and also considering supporting the parents television Council because of the great work that she will do to minor enforcement were out of town for this week, but I want to thank you so much for being with us on family policy matters by and for the very important work that you do at the parents television Council think John is a pleasure to be with you and happy new year to you and your listeners before we close out like to invite you to follow the nuclear family policy Council on Facebook.

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