PTC HAS A BONE TO PICK WITH CBS OVER 'DEXTER'

In late February, B.F. Myers Furniture, a retailer outside of Nashville, Tenn., was flooded with phone calls. They were not inquiries about dining room sets.

 

What prompted the Nashville residents to call was their unhappiness with Myers’s decision to advertise during Dexter, the controversial CBS show about a serial killer, on the local affiliate, Landmark’s WTVF.

 

"They were dissatisfied with a family business like Myers associating with a program about a serial killer,” says Michael Smith, spokesman for the store.

 

As a result, Myers pulled its advertising for the show soon after its debut on Feb. 17.

 

"I haven’t seen the show,” Smith says. “I know that’s bad on my part. But I read about it online. The show’s premise does not seem like something we wanted to support.”

 

Smith says that he doesn’t know “whether the calls were orchestrated or not.”

In fact, they were.

 

The Nashville chapter of the Parents Television Council takes full credit for the call-in campaign that cost WTVF the Myers business.

 

And Chapter Director Kelli Turner says she is working to discourage others from advertising.

 

“I just call and say, ‘Hey did you know your product is affiliated with a serial killer who also happens to work for a police department.’ ”

 

Turner says that TV stations are bound to their individual community’s standard of decency. “Someone in New York or Los Angeles cannot decide what’s right for Nashville.”

 

Turner’s Nashville campaign is part of the national organization’s strategy of using its 50 chapters to apply local pressure on TV stations to shed network programming deemed unfit for their communities.

 

While the national organization goes after the national advertisers, the chapters go after local ones.

 

The PTC has been the bane of broadcasters since it was founded in 1995 by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell.

 

The group is dedicated to eliminating profanity and excessive sex and violence from the airwaves.

 

It primary target has been indecency. PTC members and nonmembers routinely use the organization’s Web site to file indecency complaints with the FCC.

 

The PTC played a significant role following the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show on CBS in 2004.

 

The group proudly claims that 65,000 members filed complaints with the FCC about the incident, which led the FCC to fine CBS affiliates $550,000.

 

The PTC decided to go after Dexter at its meeting in Los Angeles in mid-February, over the same weekend that Dexter debuted.

 

PTC’s claims its national and local efforts have hurt Dexter.

 

Of the 63 sponsors who have advertised on Dexter to date, 25 sponsors have pulled their ads from the show, it says.

 

Among the national advertisers who has walked away are  Paul Mitchell, Move.com, Prudential, Burger King, Capital One, Chattem, Dell, eTrade and Nissan.

 

"Both Paul Mitchell and Move.com specifically wrote to the Parents Television Council to let them know that they pulled their ads from Dexter,” it says.

 

CBS declined to comment on the PTC’s claims.

 

Dexter was originally produced and ran only on CBS’s pay cable network Showtime. But short of original scripted programming due to the writer’s strike, CBS decided to give it a second run on the broadcast network starting Feb. 17.

 

The show is in its second season on Showtime; its first on CBS.

 

Some of the program’s violent content was edited to accommodate a broadcast audience. It airs at 10 p.m. ET on Sundays.

 

But the parents group’s gripe with Dexter is not just about the show’s graphic nature. They are troubled by the concept of a protagonist who is a serial killer, albeit one who only kills other killers.

 

“He is the champion, the hero, and that’s the problem,” says PTC President Tim Winter, a former NBC executive.

 

CBS defends the program: "Dexter is an award-winning, critically acclaimed series for Showtime that has been edited for CBS in the same fashion that feature films, for many years, have been presented on broadcast television.”

 

A CBS source says the network is pleased with the show ratings performance. Since its debut, Dexter has come in third place in its time slot at least four times and in second place, three times.

 

"While it didn’t lead its time period, it has gained millions of new network viewers,” says the network source.

 

CBS affiliates say they are aware of the local PTC activity, but have only been minimally affected by it so far.

 

“Every community has a different tolerance level,” says Debbie Turner, president and general manager at WTVF Nashville.

 

Turner acknowledges the loss of one local retailer over Dexter, but considers reaction to the show to be “less than moderate.”

 

Nothing, she says, compares to the public outcry and onslaught of e-mails that hit the station after the 2004 Super Bowl.

 

Dexter, she notes, has achieved some of its highest ratings at the Nashville station among all the CBS affiliates.

 

"There may be a minority of people that don’t like the show and I appreciate that, but the ratings say that there are people that do like the show,” she says.

 

Susan McEldoon, president and general manager of the Belo’s CBS affiliate in Houston, KHOU, says she heard from PTC members when CBS announced it was putting Dexter on air, but there has been no local advertising fallout. However, she says, she is aware that Dexter is on many national advertiser’s “hit list.” 

 

"Some advertisers just won’t buy it. I don’t know if that is because of the PTC or just their own good taste,” she says.

 

The local PTC efforts have not reached critical mass, according to Scott Blumenthal, chairman of the CBS Affiliate Board.

 

“This was not an issue that was brought up at our board meeting last week,” says Blumenthal, who is executive vice president, television, at LIN Television.

 

Nonetheless, Blumenthal says, the affiliates do not dismiss the PTC’s concerns.

 

“The PTC is clearly part of our constituency; they are people who watch our television stations. We are in the business to please as many people in the marketplace as possible and they are part of that marketplace. Their opinions are taken into consideration.”

 

Broadcasters should not expect the local PTC chapters to back off on Dexter or on other shows they find offensive. In fact, the group filed an indecency complaint with the FCC on Tuesday against the CW's America’s Next Top Model for showing a nude model in its March 26 episode.

 

“We are working with advertisers left and right,” says Crystal Madison, director for the group’s New Jersey chapter. “We want to get Dexter at the root of the problem and that is the advertisers.”

 

Madison is a dedicated PTC member showing up at last year’s News Corp. shareholder meeting to express her concerns about Family Guy and American Dad.

 

Both shows have “poked fun” at pedophilia and child molestation. "Kids are listening they pay a lot of attention to this stuff.”

 

“For broadcast television, I would like to see Dexter, Family Guy and American Dad completely eradicated and taken off the air,” says Madison.

 

"I don’t give up easily when there is something worthy,” says John Thompson, director of the PTC’s Omaha chapter.

 

Thompson has been aggressively urging local advertisers to drop their sponsorship from Dexter, which airs locally on the Journal's KMTV.

 

He’s even prepared to challenge KMTV’s license renewal when it comes up next.

 

“If they can’t see a clear cut thing that this is a community standards issue in Omaha, Nebraska, there is something else that needs to happen,” he says.