The watchdog group says this Tuesday’s episode of the Fox sitcom, which centered on 17-year-old Sabrina and her desire to get breast implants, included graphic sexual dialogue and double-entendres.
Although there were only three complaints from the more than two million viewers of NBC’s July 4 Miley Cyrus: Bangerz Tour special, the agency is determining if the show violated rules against indecency or profanity.
The group says scenes in the June 29 show at 9/8 p.m. ET/CT “constitute a violation of the broadcast indecency law due to the patently offensive sexual content airing when children are likely to be in the audience. It is even more troubling that CBS chose to rate the episode as appropriate for 14-year-old children.”
The watchdog group is urging its members to submit indecency complaints against the Fox comedy for an episode it says featured”an implied depiction of and references to semen, and references to masturbation.”
The FCC will likely get a mess of complaints about the Nov. 10 episode of Fox’s animated Seth MacFarlane comedy Family Guy after the Parents Television Council encouraged members today to to file broadcast indecency complaints with the commission. PTC says it sprang into action because the episode contained explicit jokes about rape, molestation, sexual exploitation of children — and the “sexualized use of food and perverse ‘internal defrosting’ of frozen hot dogs.”
The watchdog group’s president, Tim Winter: “We are focusing on #NoIndecencyFCC to let the FCC know that we consider its proposal to limit broadcast indecency complaints extremely troublesome,” said PTC President Tim Winter. “Only pursuing so-called ‘egregious’ complaints from the public about indecent TV or radio content will lead to broadcasters pushing the decency limits even further — including the airing of nudity or harsh profanity when millions of children are in the audience,” he said.
Exclusives
Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco fired a few bombs to win against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, but by dropping the F-bomb on national TV during the Baltimore Ravens’ post-game celebration, he opened CBS up to a complaint at the FCC. The Parents Television Council, which fights indecent speech on the airwaves, asked the commission to investigate CBS for its failure to bleep out the offensive word.
The watchdog group says the network’s airing at 9 p.m. ET of The X Factor contestant Geo Godley dropping his pants and exposing himself represented “a conscious decision by the producers … to intentionally air this content in front of millions of families during hours when they knew full well that children would be watching.”
The FCC has quietly dismissed indecency complaints against TV stations and more than 6,000 programs, which should clear the way for some of the 315 pending TV license renewals, most of which are being held up by the complaints, to be processed, said Robert McDowell, FCC commissioner.
