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The Parents Television
Council’s Release is Flawed by Faulty Analysis and Biased Methodology |
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Facts the Parents Television Council doesn’t want you to know:
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April
19, 2007 - CHARLESTON, SC
- According to PTC’s own
survey, which was not limited to households with children, 12 percent
of all U.S. television households use the V-Chip. Less than one-third
of all U.S. households have children at home, and assuming that only
households with children would use the V-Chip, PTC’s own results would
indicate that more than one-third of all U.S. households with children
use the V-Chip.
- V-chip ratings have proven
far more useful to parents than government regulation of content.
Ratings apply to all primetime entertainment programming and are
available to parents before the program airs, allowing parents --
including the 12 percent of households that the PTC agrees use the
V-Chip—to make their own judgment as to what content is right for their
own families. In contrast, FCC regulation protects, at the most, the
five percent of all U.S. households that: a) have kids and b) do not
subscribe to unregulated cable and satellite TV.
- PTC’s conclusions place too
much emphasis on use of the descriptors, which are merely intended to
supplement the six age-based ratings that are modeled on the commonly
understood age-based motion picture ratings system.
- Importantly, PTC’s own
study demonstrates that all but one program had the correct age-based
rating – and age-based ratings have long been the most important aspect
of the voluntary ratings system and parents’ use of the V-Chip.
- PTC misleadingly defines
words as “obscene”.
- Even where a network has
added three of the four possible content descriptors for a TV-14
program, PTC claims that the program rating did not provide parents
enough information (although PTC concedes that the program was
correctly rated TV-14).
Americans are using the tools they have and they don’t want the
government to make the decision about what’s appropriate for families
to watch:
- 75 percent of Americans
surveyed said they believe parents should decide what their kids should
and shouldn’t watch on TV rather than the government taking control of
what they watch. (Kelton Research Poll)
- 50 percent of all parents
say they have used the TV ratings, and one in four (24 percent) say
they use them “often” to help guide their children’s television choices
(Parents, Media and Public Policy: A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey)
- A vast majority of parents
who have used the TV ratings say they find them useful, including more
than a third who say they are “very” useful (38 percent) and 50 percent
who say they are “somewhat” useful. (Parents, Media and Public Policy:
A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey)
- 61 percent of parents who
have used the V-Chip say they found it very useful. (Parents, Media and
Public Policy: A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey)
- Among parents who are aware
that they have a V-Chip but have chosen not to use it, 60 percent say
the main reason is that an adult is usually nearby when their kids
watch TV, and 20 percent say it’s because they trust their children to
make their own decisions.(Parents, Media and Public Policy: A Kaiser
Family Foundation Survey)
- More than half (56 percent)
of parents have used the TV Parental Guidelines to determine which
programs their children watch. Twenty eight percent of parents say they
use the TV ratings often. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2001)
TV Watch was launched in May 2005 and is the leading national
organization to promote parental controls and individual choices as an
alternative to increased government regulation of TV content. TV Watch
is a nonpartisan coalition of 27 individuals and organizations
including legal and entertainment experts and political and consumer
organizations representing more than four million Americans. For more
information about TV Watch, visit TelevisionWatch.org or contact Emily
Tyner at (843) 722-9670.
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