MTV Peddling Smut to Kids, Study Says
by AFA Journal
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - A recent report issued by the Parents Television Council (PTC) quantifies what many parents probably suspected intuitively: that MTV, the popular music and entertainment cable network, carries a lot of sexualized programming.Titled "MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol," the PTC report says MTV programming glamorizes sexual promiscuity, violent behavior, and substance abuse. After analyzing 171 hours of programming during the cable channel's "Spring Break" coverage in 2004, the PTC report found that MTV's reality programs had an average of 13 sexual scenes per hour.
"To put this in perspective," the study says, "consider that in its last study of sex on primetime network television, the PTC found an average of only 5.8 instances of sexual content during the 10 o'clock hour when mostly adults are watching."
Music videos on MTV averaged 32 instances of foul language per hour -- more than four times the amount on network TV.
While violence on MTV was not as prevalent as sex and profanity, it also exceeded -- albeit barely -- the average number of violent instances per hour on network television. Such content is problematic because MTV is bound to be influential. It is watched by 73 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls ages 12 to 19.
"MTV is blatantly selling raunchy sex to kids," said PTC president L. Brent Bozell. "Compared to broadcast television programs aimed at adults, MTV's programming contains substantially more sex, foul language and violence, and MTV's shows are aimed at children as young as 12."
This article appeared in the April 2005 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
