Saturday, April 16, 2011

Stop Graphic Commercials during daytime sports

I like to watch sports during the day with my family on the weekends and have been surprised by some of the very graphic R rated movie trailer commercials I see during daytime television. I frequently have to tell my kids to look away or cover their eyes. I have been upset by this on a number of occasions because by the time you realize it's a bad commercial your kids have already seen some of it. I have been irritated but never done anything about it until today when I was watching the playoffs and a commercial for the movie Priest came on while my kids were watching. I told my kids to look away but it was to late. My 7 year old daughter almost immediately had tears in her eyes because of what she saw. It was this gross bald creature with fangs and claws growling or screaming. That's when I decided I had, had enough. I got online and contacted the network with the following email:

Hi,


I wanted to let you know that I am very tired of watching sports during the day with my kids and seeing horrible R rated movie commercials. We were watching the nba playoffs and saw the commercial for the movie Priest and that was the last straw. Please keep your commercials family friendly during the day. I will be dealing with nightmares and sleepless nights in the mean time from that awful commercial.

Thanks, Brittany
 
Here is the response I received:
 
Dear Brittany,

Thank you for giving us an opportunity to respond.
This is a product category that has received an acceptance in television, and the specific spot cleared (the network) advertisement standard review. We recognize that not all our viewers will view these ads as appropriate but as a national network with broad appeal, our standards recognize the widely divergent tastes of our national viewers and advertisers.

We appreciate your feedback and have shared your comments with our advertising and programming executives.

Here is what I plan on writing back:

Hi,


While I understand you view this as appropriate I can assure you that there are many parent's that agree with me and have not expressed there disgust to the network. Your clearance for advertisements are obviously very lax. I would urge you to consider only using R rated movie advertising for night time viewership. I am sure I could get many people to agree with me on this..............................(I'm not done writing the email yet)
 
Am I off base here or does anyone else agree with me?  I would like to prove to this network and other network's that it is not appropriate to show these commercials during the day, by getting enough people to voice their opinion. Please leave a comment if you agree or disagree. I would like to get the conversation going between parent's and TV network's so we can get this changed.
 You can comment on my facebook page too found here 
*all comments will be relayed to the TV network 
repost or tweet about this with a link back to this page if you want to see a change!
Thanks!!!!

18 comments:

  1. i am with you on this one Brittany. whenever we see an inappropriate movie trailer or commercial (not only the scary movies but also adult content type of commercials/trailers), I would hurry and change channels. Both my children are under 2, I don't think they understand it, but is this what I will have to deal with in the coming years?
    While I believe Hollywood glamorize these types of things, I do not find it appropriate to be on commercials during the day, during family friendly hours.
    Maybe suggest that these trailers/commercials may be played after 9pm? Maybe they don't know when "night time" hours are?

    Either way, I agree with you 100%

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  2. I commented on your FB, posted on my FB, and tweeted about it too.

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  3. Good job, Brittany! We don't watch sports so I am not aware of the commercials that are on during them but I think it is great you contacted the network regarding this! R rated movie commercials should NOT be on during day time TV! Some of those commercials even make me cringe when I don't have my kids watching with me!

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  4. We are HUGE sports fans and I cannot get over how often I have to dive for the remote or cover someone's eyes during a game! If a program is rated "E" then I believe the ads during that program should also be appropriate for everyone. I realize they meet the "standards" but it irritates me when "standards" overrule commonsense!! *I* - the Mommy - can't even stand to watch trailers for a lot of scary movies, but I know enough to cover my eyes so I won't have nightmares.

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  5. I am glad there are more parents out there with the same views. If you can tweet or facebook about the issue with a link back here I would appreciate it. I am really serious about convincing the networks to make a change. @The mommy I am with you on not wanting to watch a lot of scary movie trailers. I use to love scary movies and then I decided I should be more careful about the crap I allow to enter my brain. Now I won't even watch the trailers.

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  6. If you're talking about a game that's on during the day (and not a game at night after say, 8 or 9 p.m.), I completely agree with you. No reason to be showing a preview for an R-rated movie on a family-friendly type of show during daytime hours! You should write to your local newspaper complaining, as well. They may print it and drum up even more local support!

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  7. I agree with you also. The standards need to be raised and there is no need for R rated movie trailers during day time tv!

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  8. as you know, I totally agree. There is too much violence and horror on day time TV commercials. I have asked Daniel to pause the TV is he walks away from the remote & I can't tell you how many times we've had to FF movie trailers that would seriously traumatize our kids.

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  9. I agree with what Andrew said, you really should write to the paper.

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  10. Thank you Brittany for posting this! I have a serious problem with this. Mine is not so much the scary movie trailers though. I'll explain: Two nights ago we were all watching America's Got Talent on NBC (I think). It comes on at 8:00 p.m. here. My 10 year old son likes this so he was watching it with us. During a commercial break an advertisement for a new Playboy show came on! What?? It's 8:00 p.m. This infuriated me! It happens all the time. Kids are forced to grow up so fast nowadays and it's sad. I'd like to try to keep my kids 'kids' for as long as possible but it's hard with this kind of thing happening. About a year ago my son and his younger sister were watching I Love Lucy on TVLand when another Playboy commercial came on. I emailed TVLand but got the same kind of lame excuse you got. I don't know how to stop it.

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  11. oh yes, my biggest issue are the sexy commercials. I don't want my 4 and 5 year seeing women that way. My husband works for a company that influences national advertising. I'll ask him who the best group to contact would be to send your letters and emails directly. It is beyond the networks decisions for a large part. We have invested in a dvr for this reason, so we can skip through commercials. It is so frustrating that our culture for the large part finds this acceptable. I'm sure you've noticed you can hardly go to the mall without feeling like you're exposing your kids to all kinds of inappropriate things. Last valentines day I freaked out when we were playing in the play area and spencer gifts is right across from it and they had out trashy sexy v-day outfits right in the entry. I can't take my kids anywhere safe!

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  12. We don't even have a TV but we watch sports online and the commercials online are so violent and vulgar that I'm about ready to swear off sports for my kids...they are too young to be seeing that stuff.

    Thank you for your courage to write in...I need to look into who I should contact for the networks we watch and complain asap. Maybe if enough of us vocalize our disgust something can change?!

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  13. Thank you for this post...I have found numerous sites/posts that complain of the same issues; however, it seems as though the programmers have the power. The FCC won't touch this, cable companies point their fingers at the programmers and the programmers tell us that this is 'what everyone wants to see.'
    I am enclosing a number of sites I came across while researching inappropriate material in the media and female exploitation. I hope that some of these sites can help us combine our efforts to clean up the airwaves:

    http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/help-end-female-exploitation.html
    http://www.covergirlculture.com/?page_id=5
    http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/facts/mediafacts.asp
    http://www.clearplay.com/t-CustomerComments.aspx
    http://www.chron.com/business/article/Broadcasters-say-they-re-cleaning-up-airwaves-1578426.php
    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-04-01/news/9101300008_1_speech-freedom-airwaves
    http://kidstvmovies.about.com/od/parentalcontroltools/a/filters.htm
    http://www.americandecency.org/stern/
    http://208.74.204.149/t5/Video-On-Demand/Inappropriate-commercials-while-picking-on-demand-shows/td-p/1097473
    http://www.china.org.cn/china/2011-10/27/content_23745507.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_advertising

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  14. This is why we NEVER watch network tv AT ALL - except for the Olympics! I was very disappointed to see SEVERAL violent commercials for Rated R movies and Violent tv shows during the OLYMPICS of all things! We had to keep turning off the tv so our four year old son wouldn't see such horrible things. That monstrous horse / car commercial was specifically traumatic. My son usually watches dvds from the library and internet commercial free programming like Netflix. Just because some parents allow their children to watch violent media that traumatizes them does not mean that all parents do, and I wish the networks would realize this!

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