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American Morning

Too Much Sex on Television?

Aired August 01, 2001 - 09:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sexual content is always on television now, I think. The programming has just gotten to the point where, you know, even like when I watch my nieces and nephews, I don't want them to watch TV.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: People who are younger don't need to be watching like TV shows that have a certain amount of violence. That's, I think that's why we have the codes now like to show you like mature, like rated R and all that.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Too sexually oriented, too gross. It should be more restricted. I just don't like that it's just too open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Is television too sexy? That's a question that's taking on new urgency for millions of parents whose kids may be watching, especially in the early part of the evening. And is television more violent than ever? These are questions being asked in a new national survey. It once was known as the family hour, 8:00 to 9:00 P.M. on the entertainment networks. But these days it's anything but family oriented, in many cases. That's the conclusion of a new study from a group called the Parents Television Council and Jeanne Meserve has more on that in Washington right now -- Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donna, you're right. The so- called family hour is filled with televised sex and violence according to this new report out today. The conservative Parents Television Council survey shows that while the number of references to sex are down since their 1999 survey, the references are, in the words of the report, raunchier.

Of course, language and violence are way up, more than 70 percent, and this report found UPN programming the most objectionable in terms of suitability for children and CBS the least offensive.

Brent Bozell heads the Parents Television Council, which put out this report. He joins me here this morning.

BRENT BOZELL, PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL: Good morning.

MESERVE: Thanks for coming in. BOZELL: My pleasure.

MESERVE: My question is so what? Most of us grew up watching cartoons that had sexist, racist and violent content. We watched the Three Stooges poke people's eyes out and yet most of us grew up to be responsible adults.

BOZELL: Right, except that most of us didn't grow up watching shows that showed teenagers performing oral sex on each other. We didn't grow up during the family hour watching shows that promoted all forms of sexual raunch, that used every form of obscenity imaginable, where even the F word is now being used during the family hour. We didn't have that growing up. That's now being offered to millions and millions of children.

MESERVE: But millions of parents have the choice to turn that television off and they even have a ratings system which warns them in advance what the content of that show is going to be.

BOZELL: Well, two points. One, the rating system is a joke and everybody knows it's a joke. The producers put whatever ratings they want to on them. NBC doesn't put content ratings on at all. UPN doesn't have a standards and practices division whatsoever. It's a joke.

Secondarily, it isn't, it is the responsibility of parents. You know, there is a disconnect when 96 percent of the parents say there's too much sex and violence but 47 percent allow their children to have TVs in the bedrooms.

That said, however, let's remember something very important. The air waves are owned by the public. They're not owned by Hollywood. Hollywood is a guest in the family living room. Hollywood has always honored that. And now all of a sudden they're saying there may be millions of children watching, we don't care.

MESERVE: Well, Hollywood is also a business.

BOZELL: Well, it is a business, but if we can look at it strictly as a business, why don't we just put "Penthouse" pinups during the family hour? Guess what? You're going to get very good ratings with, you know, with teenagers with the hormones popping. That's not the answer.

MESERVE: Some people say this is simply a reflection of what has happened to our culture. There has been a general coarsening and television is simply reflecting that.

BOZELL: No, I would suggest that television is promoting that. When you've got what, where sex is concerned, where there's never any consequences to sex, everybody jumps in everyone else's bed. There's no such thing as love. It's all sex. No one ever gets AIDS. No one ever gets pregnant. The reality in the real world is that things do happen.

When a teacher has sex with a student, it's called rape and that teacher goes to prison. That's the real world. On television, it happens on "Dawson's Creek" with no consequences.

MESERVE: MTV turned 20 today. I'm curious as to whether they were included in this survey.

BOZELL: They weren't because we were looking at broadcast television, but MTV is, as one critic has said, and very bluntly, it's soft porn for children now. MTV is a horrendous network. It didn't used to be. It has become that.

MESERVE: You've done a number of surveys. The numbers, from your perspective, get worse and worse and worse. What does the future hold? How bad can it get?

BOZELL: Well, you know, there's a flip side to this. The No. 1 show for the longest time on CBS is "Touched By An Angel." The No. 1 show on W.B. "Seventh Heaven." The No. 1 show on ABC, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." There is a market for good programming. The only problem is that Hollywood seems to be deaf to this.

MESERVE: OK, Brent Bozell, thanks so much for joining us today to talk about the results of this survey.

BOZELL: Thank you.

MESERVE: We were unable to find a network executive to talk with us about this matter, but UPN did issue a statement which said, "At UPN we strongly believe in the viewer's right to make an informed choice about what they watch, which is why we voluntarily and clearly label every UPN program with our content rating."

And that's it from here. The press conference coming up in an hour -- Donna, now back to you in Atlanta.

KELLEY: All right, Jeanne Meserve, thank you very much.

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