Statement by Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of NCOSE
Washington, DC – In a letter addressed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Parents Television Council, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), and 26 other organizations and individuals called on the FCC to immediately amend the existing age-based television content rating systems which are currently failing to protect children from harmful TV content. The full letter can be found here.
“The FCC has abandoned parents who want to be well-informed about television choices for their family,” said Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. “The rating system the FCC uses is both misleading and self-serving. Most parents don’t realize that a television show rated PG can still include overtly sexual scenarios, and words like a** and b****, because PG movies are family-friendly films like Minions and Zootopia. The FCC’s rating system is also self-serving due to financial interests in rating shows PG. The FCC’s Oversight Monitoring Board, which makes these decisions, lacks any true accountability or transparency for the basis of its decisions. This united effort led by the Parents Television Council urges for the reformation of this board. Parents need access to all of the information when making decisions in raising their children, and protecting them from sexual content or content that is not age-appropriate.”
