Broadcast TV nudity up 407 percent, study shows

HOLLYWOOD — America’s parents likely do not need any evidence television content is getting worse, but a new study shows there was a 407 percent increase in full nudity on broadcast television in the 2011–12 TV year — most of it occurring before 9 p.m. and little of it containing the appropriate warning.

The study by the Parents Television Council (PTC) is the latest one showing that television is only getting coarser. A 2010 PTC study showed that profanity on broadcast TV had increased by 69 percent from five years earlier.

In light of the newest study Tim Winter, president of the PTC, sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives on Aug. 20 asking them to “give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) your full support for decency enforcement.” He also asked them to urge the FCC to “move forward with all due haste in clearing the backlog of 1.6 million unadjudicated indecency complaints.”

“Contrary to what executives from NBC, ABC and CBS told you in 2004 and 2005,” Winter wrote, “and contrary to what attorneys for the networks recently argued before the Supreme Court, they are not acting in the public interest; they are aggressively pursuing a dangerous agenda to completely obliterate any remaining television taboos.”