PTC Welcomes New Advisory Board Member Dr. Delman Coates, Founder of the Enough is Enough Campaign

LOS ANGELES (September 25, 2008) - The Parents Television Council™ welcomes a new Advisory Board member, Dr. Delman Coates, founder of the Enough is Enough Campaign.

“We are pleased to welcome such a strong advocate for parents to the PTC Advisory Board.  Dr. Coates is a leader in many regards, but particularly when it comes to challenging the entertainment industry to clean up its act.  Dr. Coates has had great impact in calling attention to negative influences and harmful content including graphic music lyrics, and we respect the work that he has done.  We are grateful for his leadership,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

Dr. Coates initiated a campaign to protest the corporate sponsorship of images and messages that degrade women, glorify criminal activity, and negatively stereotypes black and Latino men as gangsters, pimps, and thugs.  The Enough is Enough Campaign has received national attention, particularly as Dr. Coates and representatives of the campaign have frequently protested outside the home of Viacom executives Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom and Debra Lee, CEO of Black Entertainment Television to press for change in BET and MTV’s music video content.

Earlier this year, the PTC, in partnership with the Enough is Enough Campaign, released shocking new data about BET and MTV daytime music video programming, finding that children who watched BET’s Rap City and 106 & Park and MTV’s Sucker Free on MTV were bombarded with adult content  - sexual, violent, profane or obscene - once every 38 seconds.

“I am extremely excited to join forces with the PTC once again to provide a voice for many parents who are tremendously concerned about how television influences their children.  What’s really exciting to me is that the PTC represents a cross section of concerned parents, citizens, and activists who are concerned about the exposure of our young people to violence, content that’s sexually explicit, and to media that glorifies ideas that are against what parents and families are trying to instill in their children.  I’ve been working hard to bring about corporate responsibility in the area of entertainment, and this is certainly an extension of the work I’ve been doing,” said Dr. Coates.

Dr. Coates has served as the Senior Pastor of the Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Md., since 2004.  He graduated magna cum laude from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion in May 1995, and received the Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA in May 1998.  In September 1998, Dr. Coates was admitted to the doctoral program in the Department of Religion at Columbia University in New York City, where he received the Master of Philosophy degree in Religion in February 2002, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) in New Testament & Early Christianity in February 2006.

A member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Morehouse College Board of Preachers, and the NAACP, Dr. Coates’s preaching and teaching ministry enables him to minister at churches, seminaries, and conferences across the nation. In the Summer of 2008, he was honored by the African American Pulpit, the nation’s premier journal for African American preaching, as one of the “20 To Watch.” Dr. Coates is committed to a ministry of spiritual renewal, social justice, and community revitalization. He has been happily married to Yolanda Walsh Coates of San Francisco, Ca., for 12 years, and they are the proud parents of two sons, Nathaniel and Joshua.

The PTC Advisory Board consists of national public-policy and entertainment leaders across the ideological spectrum, united by the common goal of helping the PTC to protect children from graphic and gratuitous programming and to restore responsibility to the entertainment industry.