What Happens in NBC’s Las Vegas Stays on PTC’s Agenda
Parents Television Council Urges Members to Files Indecency Complaints at FCC Over NBC’s Las Vegas
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/14/2007 6:52:00 AM
The Parents Television Council put out a call to members to file indecency complaints with the Federal Communications Commission against a Nov. 30 episode of NBC's Las Vegas.
The group said a side view of a stripper stripping and patrons betting on the color of her nipples was offensive and indecent.
The PTC also used the opportunity to point out that it has been nearly two years since the FCC handed out fines against a television station for indecency, saying that broadcasters have taken note and "upped the ante" by "introducing increasingly outrageous, explicit and indecent sexual content," president Tim Winter said.
The PTC is also asking members to contact NBC and the show's sponsors. It asked members in the central and mountain time zones to file the formal FCC complaints since the show airs before 10 p.m. in those markets. The FCC set a 10 p.m.-6 a.m. safe harbor for indecent content.
As a practical matter, the FCC's indecency-enforcement powers have been somewhat circumscribed by court challenges to the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl halftime reveal and its fleeting-profanities decision, neither of which has been resolved.
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Has the PTC never heard of the V-chip, or the parental controls embedded in every satellite, cable and TiVo set-top box? If a parent is concerned that their child might be exposed to age-inappropriate material, then they should act like a parent and control what their kids watch. Leaving the rest of us to decide for ourselves.
Blake Wilcox - 12/15/2007 3:04:00 PM EST
