The Parent’s Television Council has orchestrated a collective wag of the finger to Viacom due to its broadcasting of the controversial MTV show “Skins.” This show is an American adaptation of a British show in which underage teens parade around the city engaging in debauchery of all sorts. The parents of the PTC argue in an e-mail to 200,000 of its 1.3 million members that the show is targeting and corrupting younger audiences, and even though the show’s ratings have been falling and the show has been losing money, Viacom and MTV continue to produce the show. The e-mail, which places blame primarily on Viacom higher ups and MTV as a whole, contains a link to forward the message to Viacom. They argue that Viacom is breaching their economic policy in that they are sponsoring a show that is losing their shareholders money. The recent events have undoubtedly had a negative impact on Viacom’s image, though they refused to comment on the story.
The cast from the American Skins
Two brief excerpts from the e-mail:
“Viacom has one prime directive as a publicly traded company: to return a profit to its shareholders. In allowing one of its properties, MTV, to continue to air a program that is losing the company money, Viacom is in breach of its fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders.”
“MTV has an agenda to push, and they are going to push it at all costs. They are determined to rewrite the rule book for television standards, forever lowering the threshold for what can and should be permitted on advertiser-supported basic cable.”
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