Playboy Club

After just three episodes, NBC has canceled their new TV series The Playboy Club as a result of low ratings and nutter 'outrage', drawing praise from many family organizations and faith-based groups that avidly sought to close the club.

The drama, based on the chain of Playboy nightclubs started by Hugh Hefner in the 1960s, drew strong opposition before it premiered on September 19.

Though the first episode debuted to 5 million viewers, the ratings fell dramatically thereafter, eventually leading producers to cut the show.

Groups like Morality in Media and the Parents Television Council campaigned aggressively to bring what they claimed to be a demeaning and pro-porn show to an end quickly.

Dawn Hawkins, executive director of Morality in Media, said in a statement:

It is great news that The Playboy Club is canceled after just three episodes,

Clearly viewers are not interested in supporting the brand that normalized pornography and caused immeasurable harm to women, children, and to the men who became addicted to porn.

For the Parents Television Council, President Tim Winter said:

We're pleased that NBC will no longer be airing a program so inherently linked to a pornographic brand that denigrates and sexualizes women Bringing 'The Playboy Club' to broadcast television was a poor programming decision from the start.

We are grateful to every member of the public who responded to our call to take action against this attempt to mainstream a brand that is synonymous with the pornography industry. We hope other broadcasters heed the important lessons of this programming debacle.

US morality campaigners of the Parents TV Council have written to US TV stations asking them to boycott NBC's The Playboy Club .

They wrote in a letter:

About 200,000 Americans are porn addicts – meaning they spend 11 hours or more per week looking at pornography. Forty percent of sex addicts lose their spouses, 58% suffer financial losses, one third lose their jobs. Pornography use increases the risk of marital infidelity by more than 300%. Fifty-six percent of divorce cases involved one person having an obsessive interest in pornography. Severe clinical depression is reported twice as frequently among pornography users as among non-users.

[Various internet sources estimate about 50% of US marriages end in divorce. Perhaps 40% quotes above is actually better than the norm].

I call these statistics to your attention because I assume you must be unaware of how damaging the pornography industry is to our society, to our families, and to individuals. Otherwise, how on earth could you, in good conscience, agree to broadcast in your community a program that glorifies and glamorizes this insidious industry?

I am referring, of course, to NBC's plans to air The Playboy Club this fall and am writing to urge you, on behalf of the Parents Television Council's 1.3 million members, to preempt the program in your community.

The PTC has received from its members a number of canned responses from NBC affiliates across the country, praising the upcoming series as a sophisticated series about the transitional times of the early 1960s and the complex lives of a group of working-class women.

Putting a veneer of sophistication on an industry that exploits women and destroys families is not laudable, it is disgraceful. In what manner does such the airing of such material reconcile with your public interest obligations as a broadcast licensee? Whatever positive spin you may wish to put on the series, it is undeniably a betrayal of the trust you have built over the years with America s families – the owners of the broadcast airwaves that you will be using to force this content into the living rooms of every family in your community.

According to Shelley Lubben, founder of the Pink Cross Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping victims of the pornography industry, "What's shown in The Playboy Club is not real…The series looks like it's all cute, taking place back in the old days. It seems harmless, but then they show a quick clip of three people going at it in the bathroom. NBC is breaking the law with this show. They're not meeting FCC standards."

If you proceed with plans to air this series in your community, be assured that the Parents Television Council will be carefully reviewing every episode and will urge its members to file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission about any content that may be in violation of broadcast decency laws.

Please be mindful that it is the affiliate, not the network, that will ultimately bear the financial burden of an FCC fine should any of the content be found to violate broadcast decency laws.

In a recent declaratory ruling, the FCC affirmed affiliates ability to pre-empt any network programming that is unsatisfactory or unsuitable or contrary to the public interest. The record on this is clear: contracts between networks and their affiliates may not legally prevent preemption of programming that does not meet LOCAL COMMUNITY standards. As a station manager you not only have a right, but an obligation to preempt programs like The Playboy Club that fail to meet that standard.

Utah NBC affiliate KSL has already announced that it would not be showing The Playboy Club, stating that the station's values are completely inconsistent with the Playboy brand.

Is the Playboy brand consistent with your station's values? Broadcast stations are required by law to take into account the public interest. How does this program serve the public interest? Would members of your community agree?

A Mormon controlled Salt Lake City NBC affiliate TV station has previously announced that it will not air the new NBC series The Playboy Club .

Now, two weeks later, the city's CBS affiliate, MyNetworkTV, says it will run the series. The station that has snatched up the show is KMYU and it will air the new series in the Monday 9 p.m. timeslot NBC gave it on its own lineup, reported TV Guide.

Yes, the television business works in mysterious ways. Utah will get its Playboy series, and CBS will reap the rewards that NBC's own affiliate passed up to avoid being associated with the Playboy brand, as if airing a program means the station agrees with its content.

Nutters of the Coalition for the War on Illegal Pornography believe that NBC's new series The Playboy Club is promoting the cause they are fighting against. The group say that the show will contribute to the sexual exploitation of women and promote the acceptance of pornography all while making a profit.

Patrick A. Trueman, the President of Morality in Media said in a statement:

Since the 50s, sleazy Hugh Hefner and his Playboy Magazine has pushed a philosophy which dictated that, to the 'sophisticated man,' the female is a mere toy to be used, abused and discarded. That philosophy has inflicted unimaginable harm to our society, now documented by years of research.

Today -- with the cooperation of NBC and the network's use of the public airwaves -- Playboy is poised to cause even more harm, this time bringing its sleaze directly into America's living rooms. We don't need NBC to pour more fuel to that fire.

The Playboy Club is scheduled air on NBC in autumn 2011.

Update: Branded as Nutters

13th June 2011. See  article from  deseretnews.com

NBC's The Playboy Club will not be part of NBC affiliate KSL's autumn television lineup.

The Playboy Club promotes a brand that we just cannot support, said Mark Willes, president and chief executive officer of Deseret Media Companies (DMC), the parent company of KSL: We would be helping to build a brand that stands for pornography. For us, that's just untenable.

We would never accept an ad from The Playboy Club, just as we don't accept ads for alcohol or gambling, he said.

DMC this year launched an anti-pornography campaign called Out in the Light. Airing a show that carries the Playboy name is not something KSL cares to do, said Michelle Torsak, vice president of programming for KSL, who chairs the campaign: I'm fairly liberal and I believe the marketplace decides, most of the time ...BUT... this is a no-brainer for me. We cannot in good conscience air a brand we don't believe in. There's a lot of creative, clever, fun entertainment out there. Let's look for that.

It's a good decision, according to Pamela Atkinson, chair of the nutters of the Utah Coalition Against Pornography: We know for a fact that there are people who became addicted to pornography after they started off with Playboy . It's an appetite that grows and it also shows women in a demeaning light, portrayed as sex objects.

Update: Nutter Boycott

16th June 2011. See  article from  christianpost.com

Anti-porn nutters are targeting advertisers of The Playboy Club , an NBC drama based the chain of nightclubs started by Hugh Hefner, in an effort to get the television network to cancel the controversial show before its fall debut.

Florida Family Association is joining the campaign against NBC over the show. The group said it will document all the advertisers of the show and publicize the names of those companies online and in emails to supporters.

David Caten, FFA executive director, said he plans to target Comcast and NBC to urge them to pull the show, according to Sunshine State News. The group also plans to pressure Playboy Club show advertisers to withdraw their sponsorship.