Cable
Customers Shouldn’t Be Forced To Purchase FX Network
NEW YORK (October 19, 2007) – The
Parents Television Council™ called on News Corp. Founder
Rupert Murdoch and his board members to stop airing graphic and
grotesque content on Fox Broadcasting channels during hours when
children are watching, and to publicly support a way for
families to choose and pay for only the cable networks they want
so that they do not have to underwrite indecent programming on
the FX network. PTC North Jersey Chapter Director Crystal
Madison delivered comments during the annual shareholders
meeting today and excerpts follow:
“Fox Broadcasting and the FX network have
repeatedly embarrassed you, the board and the shareholders with
such programs as Family Guy,
American Dad, Bones
and Dirt.
“Family Guy
is apparently a satire of the American family. It depends
heavily on oblique sexual innuendo and sexual themes. In one
episode the Peter character accused his proctologist of raping
him after the doctor probed his anus. In another episode, a
topless girl competes in a game show where she must catch
hotdogs in her mouth to win money for breast implants. Fantasy
violence, prostitution jokes, and cartoon nudity are all common
place on a program about family that airs at 8pm in the Midwest
and earlier in national syndication.
“The American
Dad series is no better in its parody of American
values and institutions. In one episode the Stan character is
looking forward to receiving a promotion at work but in order to
please his boss, Stan must allow him to have sexual relations
with his 18 year old daughter. In the same episode the boss
shares a sexual position he experienced while having sex with
Stan’s daughter. American
Dad airs at 8:30 pm on Sunday in Central time zones.
“Dirt
on FX has
demonstrated just how low News Corp. is willing to go to obtain
attention. The Lucy character shared this bit of dialogue in a
recent episode: ‘Basketball star with a prostitute isn’t news.
That he wanted her to bang him in the ass with a strap-on –
That’s your lead!’ The Dirt
series includes fantasies about having sex with dead people;
masturbation themes, self-mutilation and prominent drug use as
frequent storylines.
“Lastly, I’d like to remind our shareholders of
the recent offering from Fox, the series
Bones. The October
9 broadcast offered a dead body with its feet severed and was
presented repeatedly in a very graphic way, along with maggots
crawling out of a decomposing body. Is this entertainment? Not
only is it embarrassing for this company but humiliating for all
of its shareholders to be associated with such degradation of
humanity, but this must stop now.
“The PTC chairman Ambassador Leon Weil summed it
up best while speaking here last year with his common sense
solution; (quote) ‘…if you are going to air mature content on
your broadcast network, air it after 10 pm when children are
unlikely to see it. And if you are intent on putting degrading
programs like Nip/Tuck
on the air, programs that violate your own corporate speech
policies, put them on premium, not basic cable, where tens of
millions of families who don’t want it, and are in fact offended
by it, aren’t forced to pay for it.’ (End quote)
“As a mother, I am pleading with you, Mr.
Murdoch, to take control of your companies’ programming
schedules and place these negative shows and programs like them
where they belong.”
