TVSquad

The other day, Bob mentioned the f-bomb Joe Scarborough accidentally dropped during an edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC (video after the jump). Oops! Apparently, Scarborough didn't even realize he dropped the word -- he thought he said "eff you" instead of the full phrase -- and spent the rest of the show alternately apologizing and having his balls busted by Mika Brzezinski and his guests. Since it was on cable, which is not subject to FCC content regulation, It seemed like the story was closed.

But in yet another "closing the barn door" move, MSNBC has decided to put a seven-second delay on the show, mainly in response to the f-bomb. And guess who was instrumental in influencing that decision? The fun folks at the Parents' Television Council, that's who! They wrote a note to NBCU chief executive Jeff Zucker calling for the delay, and voilà! Delay instituted. The next time I need to collect a check, I should ask the PTC to make the call for me. They seem to get pretty quick results.

According to a study conducted by the Parents Television Council, marital sex is portrayed as boring on television while extra-marital sex is portrayed as "glamorous" and "exciting". The study then goes on to say that those portrayals are wrong, if not downright inaccurate.

"Everybody is having sex on TV except for married couples," PTC president Tim Winter said.

Perhaps television could satisfy the PTC's claims if married couples are shown having wild, animal sex on prime-time. They also seem to forgot that in certain states, gay couples can marry. If gay, married couples are having sex on prime-time television, would that alleviate the concerns of the PTC? I suspect not.

I find any study by the PTC to be somewhat suspect (I recall their rather skewed attack against pro-wrestling a few years ago). While their obvious agenda is to protect children from smut, I believe that their more subtle and honest agenda is to create a social pyramid with the PTC on top.

The CW recently released risqué campaign posters to get new viewers to tune in to its show Gossip Girl. The campaign, titled "OMFG," got fans and the press talking as soon as the sexy posters hit the web and magazines. Two posters were released: the one you see on the right featuring characters Serena and Nate, and another one with Blair and Chuck. Also, a "OMG" version of both posters was used.

This week, the Parents Television Council (PTC) took notice of the ads and declared war against The CW.

Edward Wyatt's New York TImes piece questioned whether NBC crossed the line by broadcasting racy material in the "family hour." On both 30 Rock and The Office, the writers let loose, basically presenting what you might call adult rated moments in what NBC asserts is family time. All I have to say to that is, "What? There's a family hour? Since when?" Apparently, I wasn't the only one caught off guard by the raunchiness of the family hour. The Parents Television Council just today rescinded their praise for NBC's claim that programs in the 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. time period would target families. PTC is calling NBC's pledge "hypocritical."

For a group that has the word "television" in their name, they sure do seem to have a lot of problems with it.

The Parents Television Council is calling for advertisers to boycott Dexter, saying that CBS didn't do enough editing of the show when they broadcast the Showtime drama on its own network last Sunday night. The PTC says that CBS broke their promise when they said they were going to edit the show to network standards and that "depictions of violence were barely altered from the Showtime network original format."

NBC and Saturday Night Live are on the naughty list of the Parents Television Council (known henceforth in this post as the PTC). The conservative watchdog organization of people who have nothing better to do are politely asking (OK, angrily demanding) that the network rethink its decision to air an uncensored version of the now famous 'Dick in a Box' skit on its own website as well as YouTube. In this particular skit, Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake liberally use Richard Nixon's nickname several times in a song about the perfect gift to give to your girlfriend.

When the skit originally aired on SNL the word was bleeped out a total of 16 times. However, since Scrooge the FCC has no jurisdiction over the Internet the network was able to leave the online clip uncensored. According to PTC blowhard president Brent Bozell NBC has hit a new low and will stop at nothing to find loopholes to have indecent programming to reach the public. In its defense the network has asked that unauthorized copies of the skit be yanked from sites like YouTube. The network's website airs both a censored and uncensored version of the skit and they have put up a warning saying that the uncensored version contains explicit lyrics.

Wow, that might be the oddest sentence I've ever written.

A while back it was reported that NBC was editing out the religious aspects of the Veggie Tales cartoons they were airing on Saturday mornings. But now, Time's James Poniewozik reports that the network has had a change of heart and will actually put the religious themes back into the shows. The Parents Television Council broke the news earlier this week.

Like Poniewozik, I'm not a fan of the PTC (I think some of their ideas are dangerous), but I agree that NBC is doing the right thing here. I mean, I'm not a big fan of editing or censorship, no matter what side of the political or social spectrum you fall on, and I thought it was bizarre when it was revealed that NBC was taking out the religious aspects of the episodes. I've never seen the show, but when they took the religion out, what was left? Was it just a bunch of vegetables running around?

The Parents Television Council has targeted NBC for cutting references to God out of episodes of VeggieTales, the popular Christian home video series that began airing on the network two weeks ago. NBC claims that some episodes had to be cut in order to fit into the alloted runtime (the videos are typically thirty minutes in length). However, VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer says some of the episodes were edited already before being sent to NBC, and the the network requested any direct references to God be removed from the episodes. The question I have is whether Vischer knew about this stipulation before signing on with NBC, and if he did, and he wanted to maintain his vision for VeggieTales, he should have declined. On the other hand, it seems more than a little naive that something with an obvious Christian scope wouldn't occasionally make references to God. All in all, this doesn't seem like the perfect match for either the series or the network.

Yesterday, President Bush signed into law a bill that increases FCC indecency fines tenfold, from $32,500 to $325,000 per violation. The sponsors of the bill, as well as the members of the Parents Televison Council, pushed for the higher penalties so they can make more of an impact on the networks. "For some broadcasters, this amount is meaningless," said Bush at the signing ceremony.

The law states that broadcast networks cannot air any obscene material and no indecent material from 6 to 10 PM. The problem is, the definition of "indecent" is still up in the air, and the mechanism for the FCC to intiate indeceny investigations is coming under fire for its inequites (as in: 4,000 PTC members with Internet access and a form letter can trigger an investigation). The push for higher fines was sparked, of course, by Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl.

Oh, Janet. What have you gotten us into here? All this hoo-ha over a misshapen, nipple-ring-clad breast. And, to be honest with you, considering what's happened since, that looky-loo you gave us so wasn't worth it.

Responding to a fine of $3.3 million from the Federal Communications Commission, CBS has said that none of the complaints regarding a recent episode of Without A Trace came from actual viewers. The network says that all of the 4,200-plus complaints labeling the episode as "indecent" came from the Parents Television Council and American Family Association, two socially conservative advocacy groups. CBS claims in its appeal that to be valid a complaint must come from an actual viewer of th show. Ironically, the broadcast of the episode that drew the complaints was a repeat. When the episode was originally aired no complaints were filed. The appeal from CBS seeks to rescind the fine, the largest ever doled out by the FCC over an indecency issue. A PTC spokesperson says that this is just legal manuvering and that the will of the people must be recognized. That might be true but the complaints are hardly valid if they didn't watch the show, are they? And where were the complaints the first time around?

Just in case Mick Jagger or, God forbid, Keith Richards decides to flash us, ABC was already planning to put a 5-10 second delay on the halftime show. Now it will also be ready in case Matt Hasselbeck decides to moon the camera. For the first time in the Super Bowl's 40-year history, the entire event will be broadcast with a five-second delay. That includes pre-game, game, and post-game coverage. Gee, I wonder what that's all about. It couldn't be the thing that wouldn't die, AKA Janet Jackson's accidental or intentional boob reveal during the halftime show two years ago, could it? Apparently ABC doesn't want the $550,000 in fines that CBS had to pay for that major nip slip. Last year, FOX refused to put a tape delay on its broadcast of the Super Bowl. FOX network said it was treating the game "as a news event".

The Parents Television Council publicly praised ABC for going with the delay. The group president said, "ABC has wisely decided to ensure that this year's Super Bowl is not hijacked by raunchy performers as it was in 2004."

Now that the sex will be taken care of, what about all the shots of the coaches and players yelling curse words? Come on! We may not be able to hear them but we know they're not yelling about figs.