Parents Television Council study says prime time TV seems to undermine marriage

A new study released today by the Parents Television Council maintains that prime time TV seems to be "actively seeking to undermine marriage" by presenting shows which mention or depict non-marital sex three or four times more often than married sex.

The group, begun as an offshoot of the conservative-oriented Media Research Center, looked at more than 207 hours of programming on the five broadcast networks during the first four weeks of the 2007-08 season. They found references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to marital sex by 3 to 1, and depictions of non-married sex outnumbered depictions of married sex by 4 to 1.

They also noted references to adultery outnumbered references to martial sex 2 to 1; there were 74 references to stuff such as oral sex and masturbation; the so-called Family Hour at 8 p.m. was fileld with references to non-married sex and the content descriptors placed on TV ratings labels often weren't adequate to describe the sexal content to episodes.

As with all such studies, this data is open to lots of discussion. Anyone who has watched a TV sitcom knows that jokes often turn on sly references to outre sexual issues. But just because Ray Barone jokes about lusting after another woman on Everybody Loves Raymond, that doesn't mean the core message of the show is that marriage is terrible.

Context, as always, is key here. And these study results seem to strip some of that context away, giving every reference to unmarried sex the same connotation. The report also quotes a 2005 study showing that "watching sex on TV predicts and may haste the onset of sexual activity among adolescents." But it is often difficult to judge whether some people are watching more sexual content on TV because they are more likely to be promiscuous, or are more promiscuous because they are watching sexual content.

For example. many of the clips shows in the PTC's multimedia display on the study, show characters which are clearly dysfunctional engaging in or preferring non-marital sex. It's hard to make the argument that characters such as Boston Legal's befuddled lawyer Denny Crane are making adultery hip.

Still, it's food for thought, but not necessarily a smoking gun. Check out the study here, and see what you think...