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Wired
for Raunch:
A Content Analysis of expanded basic cable's Original Prime-Time Series
I.
Introduction
TV Guide
recently reported that several large media companies are thinking about starting
gay-themed cable television networks. Such ventures would be consistent with
the cable industry's ongoing tendency to appeal to narrower and narrower audiences.
That narrowing
means a widening range of viewing options; in fact, that range is one of cable's
major selling points. There are channels devoted to news, weather, sports -
even, in the case of the Golf Channel, just one sport -- politics, cartoons,
old movies, science fiction, and so on.
The sheer variety
of cable programming, from Mother Angelica to pornographic films, remains astounding.
So does the variety of its quality: The best of cable is better than almost
anything on broadcast TV, while the worst of cable makes the most putrid broadcast
show look brilliant.
Of late, cable
has increasingly featured its own original prime-time series. In programming
these, the industry might have chosen to follow its success with classic reruns,
such as The Andy Griffith Show, by developing new series in that vein.
In general, it has not; instead, it has not only mimicked the ever-raunchier
fare on the broadcast networks but gone beyond it to surpass the likes of Fox
and NBC where offensive content is concerned. Hollywood's push-the-prime-time-envelope
mindset, it seems, has become established in the cable business.
II. A brief history of cable
Cable television
is older than I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners. It began in 1948,
serving households whose locations, either far from station transmitters, among
hills or mountains, or both, made receiving broadcast TV signals difficult or
impossible.
In the 1970s, the
industry began to assume its modern form. Home Box Office, which launched in
1972, pioneered original cable productions and satellite program distribution.
In 1976, Ted Turner's WTCG became cable's first "superstation." Three
networks that remain among cable's most prominent -- C-SPAN, ESPN, and Nickelodeon
-- began in 1979.
Cable truly exploded
in the '80s, during which the percentage of hooked-up households rocketed from
20 to 56 percent. Significant networks debuting in this decade included CNN
and USA (in 1980); MTV (1981); Lifetime and the Disney Channel (1983); A&E
and BET (1984); and the Discovery Channel (1985). In 1983, HBO blazed another
trail when it premiered the first made-for-cable movie.
By the end of the
'90s, cable reached about three-quarters of households, and over the decade,
expanded basic cable's prime-time audience more than doubled, from an 11.6 rating/20
share in '90-'91 to a 24.3 rating/41 share in '98-'99. In that same period,
the combined prime-time numbers for ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC fell from 38.4/67
to 31.7/54.
III. Methods
Cable's large number
of original prime-time series has prompted the Parents Television Council to
take its first-ever look at those series -- expanded basic cable only, excluding pay
cable for three major reasons:
• Basic
cable has a far larger potential audience, since only about 32 percent of
households receive pay cable.
• A great
many basic-cable series not made for youngsters appeal to them nonetheless,
or are shown on networks (e.g., MTV) whose audience skews young, whereas it
would seem that few if any children would be curious about adult pay-cable
shows like Sex and the City.
• Basic
cable has maintained program standards far closer to those of broadcast television
(which, even after thirty years of liberalization, still operates under certain
content restrictions) than to those of pay cable (where pretty much anything
goes). Even though The Sopranos is a TV show, in terms of its content it resembles
an R-rated theatrical movie much more than it resembles even the permissive-by-broadcast-standards
NYPD Blue. Lumping basic with pay is therefore problematic.
Since cable television
doesn't have a "season" the way prime-time broadcast TV does, determining
a study period wasn't easy. The PTC wound up choosing what it thought would
be a sufficiently long span of time (May 1 through August 15) to find a representative
sample (the first five episodes shown during that time) of each series. In certain
cases, that period had to be extended back into April, forwards into September,
or both to obtain enough episodes, and after all that only four episodes of
three programs, A&E's 100 Centre Street, MTV's The Andy Dick Show,
and Nickelodeon's As Told By Ginger, were located. Ultimately, those
shows were kept in the study.
Thirty-three series,
for a total of 111.83 hours of programming, were analyzed. Most of the series
analyzed were at least fairly new. Thirteen premiered in 2001; six in 2000;
four in 1999; three in '98; two in '97; and one each in '95, '94, '93, '92,
and '91.
Analysts were concerned
with three types of content: sexual references, foul language, and violence.
For the sex category, analysts entered into the PTC database both visual acts
(scenes involving amorous couples) and, much more often, verbal material (suggestive
comments or jokes and references or allusions to specific sexual acts).
Some of the sexual
content fell into the following subcategories:
• homosexuality
• oral sex
• pornography
• masturbation
• genitalia
• so-called kinky practices, such as phone sex, group sex, and bondage
Regarding foul
language, a list of every word tallied appears in the appendix.
For violence, analysts
entered portrayals, descriptions, and threats, as well as the effects of violence
(e.g., dead bodies).
IV. Statistical overview
• The overall
combined per-hour rate of sexual references, use of coarse language, and instances
of violence was 21.7. The combined average found in the PTC's last study of
prime time on the broadcast networks, which examined fall '99 programming,
was 9.8. While it's likely that figure has increased in the past two years,
it hasn't done so drastically, meaning that it can still be legitimately contrasted
with the findings in this study.
• Comedy
Central's South Park was, overall, the most offensive series, with
a per-hour combined average of 126.0. Two MTV shows, Undergrads (73.2)
and Celebrity Deathmatch (66.0), were second and third.
• Overall,
sexual content averaged 3.6 instances per hour. The fall '99 broadcast rate
also was 3.6.
• Undergrads
included the most sexual material, with a per-hour average of 28.4. Comedy
Central's The Man Show (19.2) was second, MTV's The Andy Dick Show
(19.0) third.
• More than
fifty-two percent of sexual references fell into the previously mentioned
subcategories, with references to genitalia (18.3 percent of all sexual references)
and homosexuality (13.6 percent) being by far the most common.
• There
were, on average, 13.3 uses per hour of foul language. The fall '99 broadcast
rate was 5.0.
• South
Park, an episode of which during the study period contained more than
160 unbleeped uses of "shit," was far and away the crude-language
leader, with a per-hour average of 106.0, followed by The Andy Dick Show (44.0)
and Undergrads (37.2).
• The per-hour
average of violent content was 4.7. The fall '99 broadcast rate was 1.3.
• MTV's
Celebrity Deathmatch was easily the top series for violence, averaging
36.4 instances per hour. Second was TNT's Witchblade (16.2); third was TNN's
Raw (11.7).
• The four
Comedy Central shows analyzed averaged 52.2 instances of objectionable material
per hour; the eight MTV shows averaged 42.7.
• None of
the eleven Nickelodeon series contained any sexual material or foul language,
but they did average 2.4 instances of violence per hour, and three of them
were among the ten most violent shows.
V. Examples
Sex
A rapper character
called Christ Kid: "She's a tantric all-night ranger/Hey, say what?/She's
a teenager?/She's no stranger to my manger."
(The Andy Dick Show, MTV)
Sexual subcategories
Genital
"Don't mind
Kyle, everyone, he's just got a little sand in his vagina."
(South Park, Comedy Central)
Daphne, a female
character played by Andy Dick, remarks, "My female foliage is way out
of control." He/she pulls her panties down. His/her pubic hair and genitals
are blurred in editing.
(The Andy Dick Show, MTV)
A prisoner asks
a female assistant district attorney to throw him her panties. As he's taken
away, he says to her, "You don't know what love is, do you? Could you
shoot me a beaver?"
(100 Centre St., A&E)
Homosexual
Mark: "For
me, freshman year was about meeting and being open to new people. Like my
partner, Lance. I met him my first week."
Kimmi: "You mean your roommate, Lance."
"Sure, let's call him a roommate."
(Undergrads, MTV)
A man, recounting
a shower he took with two women, says he "took a back seat and watched
the two of them do a little spanky-sucky."
(The Real World, MTV)
Oral
"You mean
you haven't made love since you moved to the White House?"
"No, no, we still make love…You know, there are different kinds
of sex."
"Oh, the president's not going downtown anymore, huh?…Did he used
to go downtown?"
"Like a champ. It's why I married him."
(That's My Bush!, Comedy Central)
"No one
wants to think about their mom giving hummers in the back seat of a Buick,
but trust me, your mom was giving hummers in the back seat of a Buick."
(The Man Show, Comedy Central)
Kinky
Cast members
visit stores called World of Sex and the Erotik Museum, which sell such items
as handcuffs, neck straps, and studded thongs.
(Real World/Road Rules Extreme Challenge, MTV)
Masturbation
Jimmy and Adam
want to find out which has the higher sperm count. They visit a sperm bank
for testing. Adam quips to a doctor there, "I've been told I have a lovely
bouquet. I'm told my semen is assertive without being pushy." Before
Adam and Jimmy produce their samples, Adam states, "Mine's gonna come
out with such thrust, Jimmy, it's gonna suck my underpants up my ass."
(The Man Show, Comedy Central)
Pornography
"Rocko,
I'm not paying for porn…There's plenty of free porn on the web."
"Yeah, there's free porn, but it's full of ads…What kind of jackass
would try to sell a guy something when he's, you know…"
(Undergrads, MTV)
Foul
language
"Punk-ass.
Take that, bastard."
(Undergrads, MTV)
"It wasn't
[bleeped 'fucking'] yours to open, you stupid bitch."
(The Real World, MTV)
"[Bleeped
'fuck']! That sucks, man."
"Dang, man, that's [bleeped 'fucked'] up."
"It's so [bleeped 'fucked'] up, I can't even take watchin' it."
(Jackass, MTV)
"I'm like
some kind of mother- [bleeped 'fucking'] dip- [bleeped 'shit'] asshole."
(The Andy Dick Show, MTV)
"Goddamn it,
when are they gonna say 'shit'?"
(South Park, Comedy Central)
"You have
the balls to say he's clarifying a delicate situation?"
"Joe, all he said was you stepped in shit."
"No, he told me to back off."
"Well, you did step in shit and you damn well better back off."
(100 Centre St., A&E)
Violence
A man wearing a
lead-lined glove punches a store owner in the face.
(The Huntress, USA)
A burn victim's
hand is shown, charred down to blackened bone.
Under the control
of a supposed priest who's actually the devil, Knowles repeatedly smashes his
head into a wall until he caves his skull in. Blood splashes the faux priest's
cheek.
(both from Witchblade, TNT)
Chyna wraps Einstein's
tongue around his neck, causing his head to explode, which sends his brain and
spinal cord flying.
Mills Lane: "These
pork rinds are the best I've ever tasted."
Stone Cold Steve Austin: "Hell, those ain't pork rinds. That's the seared
flesh of Keri Russell." Lane swallows another one.
(both from Celebrity Deathmatch, MTV)
"A young couple
had just gotten married in Northumbria. They were on horseback and they found
themselves surrounded by a group of ragtag bandits, horrible, filthy-looking
creatures. One of them grabbed the woman and threw her onto the floor, opened
up her stomach, and then started feasting on the intestines."
(Scariest Places on Earth, Fox Family)
To get back at
an older boy, Scott, for making him look foolish, Cartman lures Scott's parents
onto property owned by a man with a reputation for shooting trespassers. The
man indeed fatally shoots both parents. Cartman takes their bodies, saws them
up, and uses them in chili he enters in a cookoff. Scott is eating a bowl of
the chili when Cartman tells him what's in it. Scott finds a woman's finger
in the chili and vomits.
(South Park, Comedy Central)
VI. Conclusion
These findings
suggest that original prime-time basic-cable series are, as a group, considerably
raunchier than their broadcast-network counterparts. Those troubled by this
state of affairs do not have the option of complaining to the FCC, which has
minimal authority over cable program content. They might, however, make their
case to sponsors -- expanded basic cable, like broadcast TV but unlike pay cable, is
advertiser-supported - to cable networks, and to their local cable systems.
It's true that
the viewership for a broadcast hit like Friends far outnumbers that for even
the most popular of the series analyzed in this study, but given expanded basic cable's
76-percent penetration, the potential audience for South Park and other vulgar
fare is large indeed. That ought to give parents, and anyone else concerned
about what children watch on television, pause.
The present generally
sorry state of original prime-time basic-cable series is not inevitable, but
it will continue as long as the cable industry's mindset - edgy equals entertaining,
wholesome equals boring - persists.
--Research by Lucia
Alzaga-Soule, Melissa Henson, Kathleen Curtis, Charles Isom, Mark Johnson,
Thomas Johnson, Christopher Laurenzano, Aubree Rankin, and Jen Velencia.
For
more information about the PTC's
research and publications, visit
www.parentstv.org
Parents
Television Council
707 Wilshire Blvd. " Suite 2075 " Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 403-1300
FOR INTERVIEWS:
Kelly Walmsley (703) 683-5004
Executive Summary
Full Study
Statistical Appendix
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