What Ever Happened to Good Common Sense?

I have a bone to pick with some of my colleagues. 

I call it "The Ambush."

It all started ten years ago while I was watching a New York Giants game with my nine-year-old son, Matthew.  The game was being broadcast on Fox at 1:00 pm on a Sunday afternoon.  Rooting for the Giants was one of those wonderful father-son experiences in my family and watching a professional sporting event in the middle of the afternoon seemed like a pretty safe thing to do. During that game, there was a commercial for a very popular new program called "Boston Public" which was a series about a high school in Boston.  The program had some adult themes but it aired late at night and I had no objection to that.  However, the ad on the football game used a clip from the coming episode depicting an elderly school administrator who was seriously hitting on a female high school student.

All the V-Chips in the world as well as the parental controls in my set-top box were useless for this type of ambush.

I turned to my son who watched the commercial without much reaction but I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his nine-year-old brain.  Could he think this was normal adult behavior?  Was this what he thought would happen when he gets to high school?

Needless to say, I was appalled by what I thought was just a momentary lapse of good judgment. 

But, as it turned out, the Boston Public ad was the beginning of a whole new era.  Suggestive and inappropriate ads were popping up all over the place.  I soon came to realize that it was nearly impossible for parents to responsibly monitor what their kids saw on television.  More and more, these types of commercials were being aired without regard to their appropriateness for the programs on which they're running.

So, here we are, decade later.  And it seems to just get worse and worse.  For instance, how often do we watch TV and see ads for Viagra?

Ok.  Those ads are about a medical product which is approved by the FDA and is scientifically proven to be effective.  The ads are even usually done tastefully.  But do they have to be aired constantly on Sunday afternoons during ballgames?  Doesn't anyone think that, as a result of this bombardment that young children know way too much about male impotence and the need to seek medical help if, after four hours, ....  you get my drift.

I'm not an advocate of government censorship and don't seek it here.  I even believe that running these spots are fair game and serve a purpose as long as they run during programs that are designed for an adult audience and air late enough that children are unlikely to be watching.

But it gets worse.  Now we are being bombarded with pitches for products that "enlarge that certain part of the male anatomy" (direct quote from a pretty young woman).  These products have no cover of FDA approved effectiveness.  Many scientists claim they are a sham.  And to add insult to injury, the spots are tasteless and obnoxious.  Many, in my opinion, are insulting and degrading to women and have no place on TV at all.

Take a look at this ad.  But BEWARE.  It is totally inappropriate for viewing by children.

Here's my main issue.  I regularly see this ad while watching the news at 8:00 in the morning!  I checked with the cable network and they don't air the spot.  So it was the local cable company inserting the ad.  I immediately checked with our ad sales folks and learned we are not airing the ad in our markets.  I also know that some cable networks do indeed run this ad and don't restrict it to late night, adult oriented programs.  To be fair, I am aware that a few programmers, like A&E refuse to air the spots even though in A&E's case they own the male-oriented History Channel (a natural audience for these ads) and I applaud them for acting so responsibly.

It worries me deeply that there is a total lack of self-regulation based on good common sense when it comes to airing these types of spots.  I know the economy is tough and ad sales organizations are hurting.  But airing spots like this, all day long and on any program, is a reflection of how much more some value making money than making responsible content decisions reflective of who may be watching. 

I really do understand how these things can slip through the cracks by being part of a big national buy from a middleman (as this one seems to have been), but for heaven's sake -- someone at every network and ad sales organization should be responsible for giving these things some grown-up thought. 

This trend is deeply disturbing to me and seems to be an invitation for advocates of government censorship to try to step in.

Comments

[DO30]

I completely understand your arguement, and even agree to a point. Let's face it, the world is full of bad ads, bad people and other terrible things. So instead of going around and safegaurding everything our children will ever come in contact with (which is impossible and not the most effective way to parent in my opinion) why dont we instead sit our kids down and explain to them the difference between right and wrong instead of trying to make the world seem like a totally innocent place - which it is obviously not and never will be.

Because let's be real, eventually your child will run into people or a situation that could be harmful to them in one way or another and at that point there is no "v-chip" or any other safeguard in the world that will help. All you can do is hope that you have taught your child and instilled in them the power to konw what is right and what is wrong and hope they make the right choice. and i would be that if enough time was spent by the parents teaching this child good morals, they more often than not do the right thing.

[Pete Abel]

Michael -- Great post, and many of us feel exactly like you do about these ads. Well done.

[Jeff]

I agree 100%. When watching televison I as well dont want to be "ambushed" by ads that may have a subject that doesn't fit the time slot or channel they are aired. There are many commercials for female issues that fit this same catagory as well.
But their is another version of this "Ambush" as well and it rest in the Insight Guide. Why is it that all the adult channels are placed dead center in the movie lineup between STARZ Family and HBO Family?
According to Insight's website:

"A Simple Channel Lineup.
To make it easy to find what you want to watch, our channel lineup is organized into theme-based categories. So you can find the movie channels – or kids, news and sports – all in one place."

This def. makes it easy for kids and fans of STARZ & HBO Family to find quality programing like Lovely Latino's 4. To me it's no different then the ads that play on a Sunday afternoon.

Speaking of the easy channel lineup though, it could be anything but. Why local channels can only be found in the 1-20's. Channels 20-100 will all be randomly repeated again in the 106-900. and while I understand that MTV/VH1 are music channels, why they are hidden so deep in those audio only channels that I'm not sure anyone really listens too is beyond me. Just my 2 cents, but can that be fixed?