Parents Television Council Report on TV Violence

The Parents Television Council (PTC) report "Dying to Entertain: Violence on Prime Time Broadcast Television, 1998-2006," by Caroline Schulenburg represents their second examination of TV violence during prime time on the six major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and the WB). Using the previous report, TV Bloodbath (released in December 2003 and analyzing content from the 1998, 2000, and 2002 television seasons) as a baseline, the PTC has discerned some longitudinal trends and qualitative differences over the past eight years. For this Special Report, PTC analysts reviewed programming from the first two weeks of the November, February and May sweeps during the 2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006 television seasons for a total of 1,187.5 programming hours.

The PTC, famous for their Family Guide to Prime Time Television which rates TV shows on sex, language, and violence with a simple traffic light meter, does not hide its family values agenda but these reports offer some interesting findings. You can check out their methodology at the site's FAQ section and learn about their archive of over 95,000 hours of entertainment programming in [a]custom-designed Entertainment Tracking System (ETS) database.