Parents Television Council
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| Founded | 1995 |
|---|---|
| Founder | L. Brent Bozell III |
| Type | Advocacy group |
| Focus | "Bringing back responsibility and family values to the entertainment industry" |
| Location |
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Area served
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United States |
| Method | Media attention, direct-appeal campaigns |
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Members
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12,000 (disputed) |
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Key people
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L. Brent Bozell III (founder), Tim Winter (current president), advisory board members include Billy Ray Cyrus, C. Delores Tucker, Sam Brownback and Steve Allen |
| Website | parentstv |
The Parents Television Council (PTC) is a United States-based censorship advocacy group founded by conservative Catholic activist L. Brent Bozell III in 1995. Through publications on its website including staff reviews, (non peer-reviewed) research reports, and web-based newsletters, the Council proclaims television programs or other entertainment products to be beneficial or harmful to the development of children and actively works to ensure broadcasters and content producers conform to the council's advice.
Council activities include attempts to hold advertisers accountable for the content of the programs they sponsor, encouraging the development of what the council considers to be responsible, family-friendly entertainment, pressuring broadcasters to stop and/or limit television content the council claims to be harmful to children, as well as pressuring cable operators to unbundle cable channels so consumers can pick and pay for only the channels they want to watch.
The council launches several media campaigns a year against the producers and advertisers of television programs they perceive to be indecent. A typical campaign involves press releases declaring a particular program harmful (often with a tally of "unacceptable" character behavior or situations), the organized mass mailing of form letters and emails to advertising sponsors of unapproved programs, organized mass filing of complaints via the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website complaint form, and direct threats of long, potentially costly FCC license challenges to local network affiliates planning to broadcast what the council considers harmful network programming.
In 2004 the FCC revealed the Parents Television Council as the primary source of most content complaints received. Throughout its existence, the Parents Television Council has been accused of promoting censorship.
In 1989, the Media Research Center (MRC) began monitoring the entertainment industry for alleged liberal bias through its Entertainment Division and newsletter TV, etc. MRC founder and president L. Brent Bozell III later felt that decency was declining on most prime-time television programming. The PTC began operations in 1995 following private planning meetings with Charlton Heston, Michael Medved, and others in the entertainment industry, who would eventually make up the Advisory Board of the PTC. After the release of its first annual Family Guide to Prime-Time Television following the 1995-1996 television season, the PTC hoped to hold the entertainment industry accountable for the indecency that it perceived to be prominent on prime-time television. By 1996, the organization had the support of several members of the U.S. Congress, including Joe Lieberman and Lamar S. Smith, and an estimated annual budget of $142,000.
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