PTC Slams Kids Shows

[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Last Thursday, the Parent's television Council released a study on children's TV, "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: A Content Analysis of Children's Television," purporting to show that kids TV is more violent than adult fare. It is the group's first look at TV targeted to children, and its conclusion is that there is a "staggering" amount of violence and sexual innuendo. Sensitive to the criticism that "cartoony" violence is hardly a threat to the social fabric, the group also provided figures for violent incident totals that excluded anvils falling on Wile E. Coyote's head, for example. With anvils included, PTC's study of programming on ABC, Fox, NBC, WB, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon before and after school and Saturday morning, found an average of 7.86 violent incidents per hour, or 6.30 incidents without anvils. PTC contrasted that with the 4.71 instances of violence per hour they found across the six broadcast networks in a 2002 study.
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