- Because Our Children Are Watching
- Join the Cause
- Donate
Thank you for your interest in the Parents Television and Media Council. We'd like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit more about our organization and offer ways that you can get involved and help to protect your children from entertainment’s negative effects.
To protect children and families from graphic sex, violence and profanity in the media, because of their proven long-term harmful effects.
To provide a safe and sound entertainment media environment for children and families across America.
The PTC often receives the same types of questions from people. We have compiled some of these FAQs to help you understand our mission a bit better.
The PTC promotes and restores responsibility and decency to the entertainment industry in answer to America's demand for positive, family-oriented television programming. The PTC does this by fostering changes in TV programming to make the early hours of prime time family-friendly and suitable for viewers of all ages.
Because of the pervasive and powerful influence of television, the PTC seeks to discourage the increasingly graphic sexual themes and dialogue, depictions of gratuitous violence, and profane/obscene language that have crowded out family viewing options. The PTC concentrates on broadcast television, which uses the public airwaves to enter every home with a television set, and expanded basic cable, which millions of households rely on for their TV programming.
The PTC also assists parents in exercising responsibility for their children's viewing habits with the Family Guide to Prime Time Television. The Guide offers a traffic-light ratings system with red-, yellow-, and green-light ratings indicating the amount of sex, foul language and violence in each series. The ratings system is accompanied by clear descriptions of every prime time show, enabling parents to make educated decisions about the programs they and their families wish to view.
The PTC has customarily focused on broadcast television programs -- particularly during prime time, and especially during the "Family Hour" (the earliest hour of network television each evening). However, because of the influences late-night programming and cable can exert on the medium as a whole, the PTC does monitor shows airing in other time slots, and on expanded basic cable channels.
Parents often complain that when objectionable programming comes into the home via the widely accessible venues of broadcast television and expanded basic cable, it is often virtually unavoidable and puts a tremendous burden on them to monitor their children's viewing 24/7 especially now when family programming is scarce.
Parents Television and Media Council
P.O. Box 4210
Burbank, CA 91503-4210
Phone: (800) 882-6868
Email: editor@parentstv.org
No.
Corporations need to advertise to sell their products. The PTC believes that corporations also have a sense of social responsibility. The PTC tries to appeal to a corporations' own standards by making a well-documented case that certain shows are unsuitable at certain times and in venues where children are presumed to have unrestricted access.
Our members, however, are free to tell advertisers what their own response to sponsorship of offensive programs will be.
Yes! The PTC has seen corporations stop advertising on offensive programming, and has effected changes in some of the worst programming, primarily because of the phone calls, e-mails, and letters from our members. Keep up the good work! Corporations do listen to you, and the networks listen to the corporations they depend on for advertising dollars. The networks produce programming primarily with a view to what will bring in the most ad dollars. So, please contact those corporations we list as sponsors of offensive programming and let them know of your dissatisfaction with their advertising practices.
By organizing and communicating effectively, you can help to change television.
SUPPORT THE CAUSE WITH A DONATION!
Your tax deductible donation: helps enforce the laws when broadcasters violate the decency standard; helps in the fight so consumers can choose and pay for only those cable networks we want in our homes; helps our research department document the rising trend of extremely graphic violence in our regular programming; helps us work with Congress to insist that networks accurately rate their programming; and much, much more.
TAKE ACTION AND JOIN A CAMPAIGN!
Besides e-alerts, the PTC has also organized campaigns that encourage action to be taken by legislators and other entities involved, such as Advertiser Accountability, Cable Choice, Broadcast Indecency, and Female Sexualization.
BE INFORMED AND GET INVOLVED!
If you are new to PTC, go to the "New to PTC" page where you can get a quick review of all the way you can get involved.
SPREAD THE WORD
Changing the media culture will take all of us working together. Social media and other technologies have made it easier to spread the word and become involved, but we need your to help. SHARE THIS PAGE, post on Facebook, tweet out about the PTC mission, e-mail your friends and family, and do whatever it takes to make the world safer for our children.