No Turning Back

NO TURNING BACK
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Moss]
Media-watchdog groups -- such as the Parents Television Council, the American Family Association and Industry Ears -- have been fighting against racy programming for years now. But this year, the war over televised indecency took a different turn. A new group of constituents — TV critics, advertisers and TV fans alike — chimed in to publicly complain about how far cable content has gone. Some claimed that a handful of basic-cable networks shattered old boundaries about what can be depicted on the small screen. Whether or not new TV standards have been established, long-time critics aren't happy about where the bar has now been set. And they want some changes. The PTC has a five-year plan to crusade for a la carte offerings on cable, arguing that consumers shouldn't be forced to get networks with edgy content as part of a basic-cable subscription. To try to tame TV programming, the PTC has employed a strategy of targeting advertisers and pressuring them to take their commercials off specific shows. Chafing at such tactics, cable programmers proudly point out that some of the programs the PTC objects to are huge hits for cable, with millions of viewers. Such viewers are free to turn the dial if they don't like what they see on the screen, and they don't need the PTC or anyone else dictating to them, according to cable executives.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6390303.html