TV’s biggest conservative watchdog is apparently being put to sleep.
The Parents Television Council has filed for bankruptcy protection after decades of protesting sex, profanity, and violence on TV.
The Burbank nonprofit filed for liquidation, noting it had $92,000 worth of assets and $285,000 in liabilities. (The PTC did not reply to a request for comment, the filing was first reported by SF Gate.)
The organization launched in 1995, and by the early 2000s, the PTC was a powerful force in the culture war. Its press releases criticizing the latest risqué scenes on broadcast and basic cable TV routinely generated media headlines — as did its deep-dive studies showing an increase of more adult content.
The organization’s tagline was “Because Our Children Are Watching,” which seemed to strike a chord among some parents as broadcast channels pushed the envelope in terms of adult content to compete with the more grown-up vibe of ascendant basic cable channels like FX and AMC, and basic cable channels strove to compete with the R-rated vibe of premium cable channels HBO and Showtime. Once streaming services entered the fray — which were free from worries of government regulators or advertisers — TV entered a post-censorship era where the likes of Netflix can offer both children’s cartoons and hard R-rated films in the same app, with hardly an eyebrow raised.
But for awhile there, the PTC was a watchdog with teeth. The organization helped spearhead complaints to the FCC about Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during CBS’ coverage of the 2002 Super Bowl halftime show (a fine for $550,000 was eventually tossed) and helped generate outrage against CBS for a 2004 episode of Without a Trace which suggested some teenage characters participated in an orgy (CBS was hit with a record $3.6 million fine).
Some of the PTC’s battles were downright silly. In 2006, the PTC went after an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants accusing it of featuring “dolphin sounds [that] represent the F-bomb and a word for buttocks,” according to The New York Daily News, which pointed out that, ironically, the entire point of the episode was that using bad language is wrong.
A 2010 story in The New York Times suggested the PTC was already stumbling a bit and struggling with declining donations and legal battles. At the time, the PTC was in full froth against CBS having a William Shatner sitcom titled $#*! My Dad Says and outraged by a sexy GQ magazine spread featuring the young castmembers of Fox’s Glee.
But perhaps the PTC’s most frequent target was Fox’s Family Guy. The organization had a years-long feud with the animated hit and often named the show its “Worst Show of the Week.” One episode, “Family Gay,” prompted a reported 188,000 letters from PTC members to the FCC (though the agency didn’t take action).
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has a famously description of the PTC’s protest letters in 2008: “That’s like getting hate mail from Hitler. They’re literally terrible human beings. I’ve read their newsletter, I’ve visited their website, and they’re just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values — I mean, I’m an atheist, so what do I know? — they spend their entire day hating people. They can all suck my dick as far as I’m concerned.”
But in an interesting twist, MacFarlane and PTC chief Tim Winter eventually met up and became friendly and the PTC praised his Fox sci-fi show, The Orville. The reconciliation started with Winter writing MacFarlane a sincere letter and the duo ended up meeting for a three-hour dinner.
“I was properly humbled,” MacFarlane told The Los Angeles Times, “and I figured that I gotta give him a call.” After that meeting, MacFarlane realized, “You find out that you have a lot more in common than you initially thought … I think it is a healthy, necessary thing for them to exist in the same world as what we are doing.”
Added Winter: “If the president of the Parents Television Council and the creator of Family Guy can have this kind of a relationship, maybe other folks might be able to try to do the same thing.”
