Dark, Violent Content Marketed to Children During Super Bowl

The Parents Television Council expressed concern over the volume of adult-rated promotional content that aired during last night’s Super Bowl LI broadcast on Fox. “Super Bowl LI was a championship for the ages, thankfully due to the football game and the halftime show, and not from wardrobe malfunctions, f-bombs or middle-fingers aimed at viewers. While we’re grateful for that good news, the bad news is that there was a troubling volume of movie trailers and TV promos marketing explicit programming. Fox mixed dark and violent ads into what was otherwise an exciting Super Bowl football game and halftime show that millions of children and families were watching,” said PTC President Tim Winter. “The ever-popular commercial breaks were full of TV-MA-rated promos, and R-rated and not-yet-rated (though likely to be R-rated) movie trailers. Even the TV-14 promos contained dark and violent scenes of the programs being marketed. Nearly every commercial break included promotional material for adult and violent content during the most-watched program of the year for families. “After the Columbine tragedy, Hollywood promised to be more mindful of the time and placement of its promotional messages for violent content. Apparently, that has been forgotten now. Even as recently as last year’s Super Bowl broadcast, PG-13 movie trailers aired but R movie trailers did not. “We call on Fox and all other networks to reconsider promoting such violent fare during the Super Bowl and during other times when children are likely to be in the viewing audience.”