PTC Special Reports

Faith in a Box
Entertainment Television and Religion
September 25, 2003-September 24, 2004
By Caroline Eichenberg

Executive Summary

According to a 2003 Harris Poll, 90% of Americans express belief in God. Television is crawling toward an understanding of this statistic by including religious subject matter in more of its programming (one treatment per hour in 2003-2004 versus one every 3.3 hours in 1997). But a review of the treatment Hollywood gives the subject proves that it still has virtually no respect for religion.

In this sixth Parents Television Council study looking at the treatment of religion on television, an entire year of prime time broadcast programming was analyzed, for a total of 2,385.5 hours of programming containing 2,344 treatments of religion. In its last study on religion of television, released in 1997, the PTC found only 551 treatments of religion in 1,800 hours of programming.

In 2003-'04, negative depictions of religion surpassed positive depictions. But depictions of aspects affiliated with organized religion (such as doctrine or the clergy) were overwhelmingly negative. Hollywood's hostility toward religious institutions and the elements that constitute them (including clergy and devout laity) stands in stark contrast to the actual religiosity of the American public.

Major Findings

NBC is by far the most anti-religious network with a shocking 9.5 negative treatments for every positive treatment. Fox followed with 2.4 negative depictions for every one that was positive. WB and ABC tied with 1.2 negative for each positive, followed by UPN with 1 negative for every 1.1 positive; CBS with one negative for every two positive; and ITV, which did not have a single negative depiction.
The treatment of religion in an institutional or doctrinal context (such as a reference to a church service, a particular denomination, or to Scripture) was strikingly negative. More than 32% of TV's treatments of religious institutions and doctrines were negative, while only 11.7% of such treatments were positive. This is in stark contrast to findings in the 1997 survey, in which similar treatments were positive almost twice as often as they were negative (40.3% positive; 20.9% negative).
Negative depictions of clergy were more than twice as frequent as positive depictions (36.2% negative to a mere 14.6% positive). This is a departure from the 1997 study, which found the clergy treated kindly more often than not (32.7% positive, 27.6% negative).
Representations of the devout laity tended to be negative more than positive, but to a lesser degree than in the past. In '03-'04, laity was represented positively 20.4% of the time, negatively 33.3% of the time. These numbers are encouraging, given that in the 1997 study, only 7.9% of the treatments were positive, whereas a staggering 78.9% were negative.
Negative treatments were more prevalent than positive ones on NBC, Fox, and WB in all time slots. On CBS, UPN, and ITV positive treatments outweighed negative ones. Only in the 8:00 hour were there more positive than negative depictions of religion on ABC (17.7% positive to 14.5% negative).

Negativity toward religion grew steadily with each passing hour of prime time. During the 7:00 p.m. hour, religious content was negative 16.9% of the time. In the 8:00 hour, 20.8% of instances were negative. In the 9:00 hour, 27.5% of instances were negative, and in the 10:00 hour, 28.2% were negative.

Only in the 8:00 hour did positive treatments outweigh negative when all networks were combined (24.2% positive, versus 20.8% negative).

With more than 90% of Americans professing a belief in God, and a majority willing to affiliate themselves with organized religion, one would expect that TV would favor positive treatments of religious themes and institutions, but that usually is not the case. Instead, layfolk and clergy are more often than not depicted as hypocritical and religious institutions as a mockery. Hollywood's general disdain for religious beliefs is out of step with the majority of citizens in this country.

Full Report | Statistical Appendix