Offensive Broadcast Series Cancelled!

The annual “upfronts” – during which TV networks announce their fall schedules and meet with advertisers to hammer out sponsorship deals – are occurring this week. From them came the welcome news that some of broadcast TV’s most offensive new series have been cancelled. The PTC has previously detailed the tawdry, sex-obsessed content of CBS’ Friends With Better Lives, while the same network’s Bad Teacher was a show about precisely that: a gold-digger who lies about her credentials to become a high school teacher and pursue the fathers of her students – all while bullying the students themselves and making non-stop references to sex. Neither program be shown next year. Also not returning is Fox Broadcasting’s Dads, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s first foray into live-action TV. Dads proved every bit as offensive as MacFarlane’s cartoons, with characters spewing racist sentiments and explicit sex “humor” non-stop. The PTC called out the program earlier this year for a disgusting scene explicitly referencing sex and bodily fluids, and asked advertisers not to support it.. We also urged our members to file FCC complaints about the sleazy show, Thousands of you did – and now, the show has been cancelled. But the greatest triumph of the year is Fox’s announcement that its unbelievably graphic late-night cartoon series ADHD has been cancelled. The news of that program’s cancellation came literally HOURS after PTC highlighted ADHD’s offensive online video trashing Passover and Easter. The show’s top advertiser, Target, pulled its support for the – and soon thereafter, Fox pulled the plug on the sick series. Broadcast TV is still home to too many sex-slathered sitcoms, from 2 Broke Girls to Two and a Half Men to Family Guy; but at least viewers can rejoice that a few more won’t be on the schedule this fall – thanks to the PTC, and YOUR activism.