PTC Criticizes TV Ratings Board in New Report

Winter to reporters Tuesday. He promoted PTC research saying violence and profanity in TV shows rated for children has increased over the past decade. After measuring and recording instances of violence and profanity on prime-time network broadcast TV during “sweeps week” in 2017-18, PTC found 28 percent more violence and 43.5 percent more profanity on TV-PG shows in 2017-18 than in 2007-08. “There was over 150% more violence, and 62% more profanity total, on programs rated TV-14,” PTC said. “We are urgently calling on Congress to ensure that the TV content ratings system, and the TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board, is overhauled to improve the accuracy, consistence, transparency and public accountability of the TV ratings,” Winter said. The call to improve the board isn’t intended to control what people watch, said film critic and content ratings supporter Nell Minow to reporters. “We want parents to have the information they need,” said Minow, whose father, then-FCC Chairman Newton Minow, famously called television a “vast wasteland.” The current, industry-controlled board is “fake oversight,” said Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America. Two of the board’s seats earmarked for non-industry groups are held by what Winter called industry front groups, Entertainment Industries Council and Call for Action. Both groups have boards that include numerous TV industry executives, according to their own websites. “You cannot be the pitcher and the umpire in the same game,” said Minow. Winter wants congressional hearings and symposiums on improving the ratings board to include independent oversight by child behavior experts. “What we have isn’t working,” Winter said. The board and the trade groups that oversee it -- NCTA, NAB and the Motion Picture Association -- didn’t comment.