Children who watched certain daytime shows on cable’s MTV and BET were exposed to adult content — including that of a sexual, violent, profane or obscene nature — once every 38 seconds, according to a study by the Parents Television Council.
"We thought we’d seen it all, but even we were taken aback by what we found in the music video programs on MTV and BET that are targeted directly at impressionable children," said Tim Winter, president of the pro-family watchdog group.
Delman Coates, an African-American pastor and founder of the Enough is Enough Campaign to push for change and accountability from networks like MTV and BET, asked the Parents Television Council to conduct the study in order to increase awareness of the destructive images on television that are negatively impacting society.
"It’s these images of black men as gangsters and thugs and criminals [and] black women as being hypersexualized — which are actually long-standing stereotypes of black people that have endured since slavery — that I felt really needed to be challenged," Coates said at a news conference releasing the study.
"And that’s really what it is, a kind of coarsening of American popular culture."
For the report, PTC analyzed adult content airing on BET’s "Rap City" and "106 & Park" and on MTV’s "Sucker Free on MTV" during afternoon or early evening hours for a two-week period last December.
The analysts were so shocked at the high volume and degree of adult-themed material that they conducted an additional week of analysis in March. The data revealed even higher levels of adult content in March than in December, PTC said.
"BET and MTV are assaulting children with content that is full of sexually charged images, explicit language, portrayals of violence, drug use, drug sales and other illegal activity," Winter said in a news release accompanying the report’s release April 10. "Not only that, but we discovered that some offensive words aired only in muted form in December 2007, but as recent as March 2008, these same words were not muted.
"Excluding one program on BET, neither BET or MTV carried content descriptors that would work in conjunction with the V-chip to block the programs from coming into the home or to warn parents about the presence of sexual content, suggestive dialogue, violence or foul language," Winter added.
"This is a major problem for parents who are told repeatedly to rely on their V-chips to protect their children." (BP)
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