The Taming of Prime Time : Viewer Protests, Ad Defections Rattle Networks

On Oct. 26, 1988, near the beginning of the strike-plagued 1988-89 TV season, ABC aired “Crimes of Passion,” a “reality-based” special about people who have committed crimes against their loved ones.

On April 29, 1989, at the end of the 1988-89 TV season, ABC abruptly yanked the sequel, “Crimes of Passion 2,” from its schedule.

In a terse statement, the network said “Crimes of Passion 2” was pulled because it failed to get advertiser support. ABC Television Group president John B. Sias said the network, concerned about its image, would be taking a harder look at its reality-based programming in the future.

What made “Crimes of Passion” acceptable last October and “Crimes of Passion 2” unacceptable six months later? “Crimes 1” and “Crimes 2” have become the brackets to an extraordinary season in which the networks stretched the boundaries of good taste further than ever before--and wound up going too far for many viewers and advertisers.

Now there are indications that the networks are becoming more conservative--not in response to ratings but because of a flurry of viewer protests and advertiser defections. Besides ABC’s action last week, NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff has said next fall’s programming on his network will be tamer.

Although no one can pinpoint a single reason for what happened between “Crimes 1” and “Crimes 2,” TV industry observers point to several factors.

Kathryn C. Montgomery, assistant professor of film and television at UCLA and author of the recently published book “Target: Prime Time,” a history of how advocacy groups have sought to influence TV programming, sums up what happened during the past season as a strong visceral reaction by the public to this season’s programming.

Last summer’s 154-day Writers Guild of America strike, she said, caused a proliferation of “trash TV” shows, mainly because such nonfiction programs could be produced without Guild writers. Strike-related delays also resulted in regular series programming being rushed onto the screen without adequate time for the censors to review it, allowing more profanity and violence to slip in. This problem, Montgomery said, was exacerbated by staff cuts in all network departments, including program standards, during the past few years.

As the season got off to a late start last October, the programming fare included not only “Scandals” and “Crimes of Passion,” but also the Geraldo Rivera special “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground” on NBC and NBC’s “Favorite Son” miniseries, which was ripped by some critics for including lurid violence and kinky sex.

Later in the season, NBC’s mid-season series “Nightingales,” featuring nubile young nurses in lacy lingerie, was boycotted by several advertisers and attacked by the American Nurses Assn. Despite good ratings and a promise to clean up its act, producer Aaron Spelling has voiced fears that “Nightingales” might get canceled as part of NBC’s effort to improve its image.

NBC also received some complaints from viewers for allowing the word goddamn to sneak into an episode of “L.A. Law.” Several advertisers said they would not buy spots in NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” because of a sketch that used the word penis. ABC’s “HeartBeat” also lost advertising because of content objections.

Although pressure groups have always been active in criticizing network programming--and have remained relatively powerless--Montgomery and others associated with TV say this season’s activists have become a stronger voice. Not only did “trash TV” give these groups more to be outraged about, more of them took to complaining to the advertisers.

“I do think there is a kind of unprecedented amount of attack directly on advertisers (this season),” said Montgomery.

Kathy Wyer, a representative of General Foods, agreed that the public has been “more active than usual” this past season. Moreover, she noted, the pressure is coming not from individuals but from pressure groups.

“I think if General Foods got a lot of angry mail, it would turn their heads,” she added.

In the past few months, Detroit homemaker Terry Rakolta made headlines by writing to advertisers asking them to boycott Fox Broadcasting’s “Married . . . With Children,” which she said contains scenes she considers to be “soft-core pornography.” Rakolta said she went to advertisers after getting no response from Fox Broadcasting.

“I think sponsors are aware that things have gone too far,” she said.

Last week, Rakolta announced that she has formed an advocacy group of her own, Americans For Responsible Television.

“I don’t think you can go in to talk to the advertisers as one person,” she said. “As a group you have a lot more impact; it’s not just one person saying, ‘Here’s my opinion.’ ”

This month also marks a redoubled effort to “clean up” network TV by a longtime protester, the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, executive director of the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Assn. The association has said it is monitoring network programs during the May “sweeps” ratings period, and at its end will launch a yearlong boycott of those advertisers who sponsor shows the group finds offensive--a tactic he has tried in the past with little success. Wildmon said public support for his group has jumped 30% to 40% during the last season.

Wildmon believes that advertisers’ decision to support “Crimes of Passion” and not “Crimes of Passion 2” directly resulted from his group’s planned boycott.

“The question would be, why did they go into the program (six months) ago, and why didn’t they go into it this time? They are concerned about the boycott, yes, ma’am, they are.”

UCLA’s Montgomery believes that, although viewers have a right to make their views known, pressure groups that seek sponsor boycotts because shows present points of view with which they disagree set a dangerous precedent.

“We have put the advertisers in the role of being the arbitrators in what the American public sees,” she said. “They, unfortunately, are sort of the heart of the system that we have. Not the soul, perhaps, but the heart, in the sense that the heart pumps--it provides the money.”

ABC and CBS say they have not increased their standards and practices staffs in response to viewer backlash; Fox Broadcasting has had one standards staffer since it began programming in prime time and plans to leave it at that. NBC, however, responded to viewer outcry last month by adding a new vice president of program standards, sociologist Rosalyn Weinman.

Weinman said that network television misjudged the public tastes this season. But NBC plans to solve that problem through more thorough research and discussions with public-interest groups, rather than responding to advertiser boycotts, she said.

“I think that we are definitely trying to get a better sense of where the audience is,” she said.