Media Issues: March 2008 Archives

The Wall Street Journal reports that networks are deliberate pushing the envelope of good taste* in broadcast programming, shamelessly making every effort to get away with as much as possible. This perhaps serves as a vindication of conservative groups who have been saying as much for years. "Directors and producers are deploying new tactics to get spicy material into television shows. Exactly what network standards will allow is a particularly touchy subject this season, as broadcasters struggle to walk a fine line between the television audience's growing appetite for steamy fare and the Federal Communications Commission and partisan watchdog groups' shrinking tolerance for it." Viewers are "flocking" to racier shows and leaving "tamer" programs behind.

Advertisers are our big proponents here. '"A lot of marketers don't want to be associated with a show that has too much sexual content," said Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research for Horizon Media, an ad-buying company.' So keep calling them and protesting.

A big controversy is over Showtime's serial killer drama "Dexter". Get it? Dexter, Latin for "right" and opposite of "sinister" (left)? Talk about outrageous perversion; portray a serial killer sympathetically and give him a name that means "right". (His victims are hard-to-catch murderers, so that is part of why he is named "Dexter". But it's still a perversion if you ask me.)

A very good reason not even to watch TV nowadays ...

*Article will expire around 3/14/8