Within the late Nineteen Nineties and early aughts, the conservative Mother and father Tv Council struck worry within the hearts of community TV executives for its high-profile campaigns in opposition to reveals it deemed too raunchy.
The watchdog group, based by conservative commentator L. Brent Bozell III, railed in opposition to Fox’s “Melrose Place” and “Household Man”; NBC’s “Simply Shoot Me”; and the CW’s “Gossip Woman.” It additionally singled out CBS following the notorious Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake “nipplegate” controversy in the course of the 2004 Tremendous Bowl halftime present when the singer’s breast was briefly uncovered.
However the Mother and father Tv Council Inc. — whose members lodged 1000’s of indecency complaints with the Federal Communications Fee — has folded. Earlier this month, the Burbank-based nonprofit filed for Chapter 7 chapter in Delaware court docket, saying it had $284,823 in liabilities, which embrace employees member salaries, insurance coverage funds and bank card debt. The submitting lists $91,874 in property.
The group’s demise displays broad cultural modifications, together with a fractured media surroundings and customers’ shift to streaming and social media apps comparable to TikTok for leisure. Mother and father even have instruments, together with the power to configure settings on streaming accounts to attempt to defend youngsters from inappropriate content material.
The PTC’s energy got here, largely, from its capacity to flood the FCC with indecency complaints. However the FCC, which licenses broadcasters, doesn’t regulate streaming companies, YouTube or TikTok.
The council had clout with advertisers, which put strain on community programmers to reduce reveals that might increase the group’s ire and threats of boycotts.
“I’m disenchanted however I’m nonetheless very happy with what we did and what we achieved,” Tim Winter, former president of the group, mentioned Friday. “We have been in a position to increase consciousness about so many essential points — points which might be nonetheless on the market.”
“Like most companies, it got here all the way down to cash,” mentioned Winter, who retired three years in the past. “It’s only a slog on the market to fundraise.”
Many years in the past, the group hauled in tens of millions of {dollars} in donations. The PTC boasted greater than 653,000 members and supporters by 2000. Nevertheless, in 2023, the newest 12 months of obtainable tax stories, the Mother and father Tv Council raised simply $1.6 million, down from $4.7 million in 2007.
The group, which additionally glided by Mother and father Tv and Media Council, was fashioned in 1995 by Bozell because the Hollywood arm of his Virginia-based Media Analysis Middle.
Bozell, lengthy a booster of President Trump, now serves in his administration as ambassador to South Africa.
One of many PTC’s early efforts was to induce broadcasters to order the 8 p.m. hour for family-friendly fare. That was the customized of the networks within the Nineteen Seventies; however twenty years later, there was an increase in sexually suggestive content material.
Through the years, the group employed analysts to observe TV programming, revealed detailed stories and TV present rankings. Winter testified earlier than a U.S. Senate committee listening to in 2007 on the influence of media violence on youngsters.
Advertisers have been delicate to the PTC’s warnings.
“We have been in a position to redirect tens of tens of millions of {dollars} away from extra express programming and into extra family-friendly reveals,” Winter mentioned.
The PTC additionally spoke out in opposition to media consolidation, which accelerated within the Nineteen Nineties, “the issue of getting too few voices maintain the microphone,” Winter mentioned.
Whereas it initially targeted on broadcast reveals, the group went after others, together with Netflix when it provided the present “13 Causes Why,” based mostly on a e-book a couple of 17-year-old woman who died by suicide. The PTC, and different organizations, decried the collection, fearing it might encourage extra deaths.
Netflix responded by deleting a graphic suicide scene, and the present was later canceled.
“The media tradition isn’t any much less poisonous than it was years in the past. And in some methods, it’s extra poisonous,” Winter mentioned, including that different organizations must carry the mantle. “The mission is extra essential than ever.”
