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Cable subscribers paying for unwanted content
Published October 16, 2009
Would you pay good money to watch a group of no-name, no-talent comedians make jokes about rapists and child molesters?
Well, you did. When Comedy Central cable network aired the “Roast of Joan Rivers,” which not only featured jokes about incest and child molestation, but also showed Joan Rivers herself giving little children the finger, you paid for it.
Regrettably, this is not the only thing you have paid for that you probably wish you hadn’t. Every week, we are all accomplices when “Sons of Anarchy” on FX plays its brand of extreme and explicit violence featuring shootings, stabbings and beatings, not to mention a cattle castration knife used to cut off a rapist’s testicles. How about our collective roll in helping Glenn Martin DDS promote 11-year-olds becoming strippers among other sexual content, graphic violence and scatological humor in this animated show that airs on Nickelodeon?
It doesn’t have to be this way. The Parents Television Council endorses a solution called Cable Choice. Under this plan, cable and satellite TV customers would initially receive “bundled” networks, as they do now; but for every channel that the customer blocked, they would receive a refund equal to the cost of that channel. The result would be that individual customers would have true consumer choice — selecting and paying for only the channels they watch. Customers would no longer be forced to pay for unwanted or offensive programming.
There’s a place for adult programming — and adult humor — on TV. But comedians using something as truly evil as sexually molesting a child as a punch line is beyond the pale. That Comedy Central would show a program with these jokes still visible to viewers — including children themselves — is contemptible. And that the entertainment industry would force every cable and satellite subscriber to underwrite it is reprehensible.
If you don’t think jokes about child sexual abuse are funny and if you’re tired of paying for shows you don’t want in order to get the cable network programming that you do, please join the PTC in calling for consumer Cable Choice.
George L. Hall is the Houston Chapter Director for the Parents Television Council. Consumers can learn more about cable choice and calculate what their cable bill would be if they were able to opt out of the channels they don’t want at www.HowCableShouldBe.com.
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