Parents Television Council reports prime-time nudity is on the rise

Our take: The number of full nudity incidents during the 2011-2012 prime-time broadcast TV season increased by a shocking 407 percent compared to the previous year, according to research by the Parents Television Council. The PTC also found that such instances of full nudity are being show as early as 7 p.m., and most shows depicting nudity do not provide accurate warnings. Read more about the findings in this article from the PTC.

LOS ANGELES (August 20th, 2012) Today, the Parents Television Council released results of a research analysis regarding nudity on prime-time broadcast television. PTC found a 407% increase in the amount of full nudity that aired in the 20112012 study period compared to the same time period the previous year. In light of the findings, PTC president Tim Winter sent a letter to congressional members asking them to urge the Federal Communications Commission to move forward in clearing the backlog of 1.6 million unadjudicated indecency complaints.

In their analysis, PTC also found trends towards more full-frontal nudity, full nudity at earlier hours of the evening, and a clear failure on the part of the TV networks to use their content ratings system to warn parents. The following are excerpts from PTCs letter to congressional members:

"In 2006, Congress passed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act in response to growing outrage from the American people over the broadcast networks abuse of the publicly-owned broadcast airwaves. Yet since that time, we have seen a concerted effort on the part of the networks to constantly push the outer limit of what may be considered appropriate for the broadcast medium.

Read more about the Parents Television Council's research on ParentsTV.org.