Watch Out: This Could Get Gory

When New Line Cinema came out over the summer with its R-rated Jennifer Lopez thriller, “The Cell”--a disturbing journey into a serial killer’s psyche with sequences of a man being disemboweled and a woman’s corpse being bleached in a vat--the studio was heavily advertising the film on the Fox animated series “The Simpsons,” which drew an average of 2.7 million youngsters between the ages of 2 and 17.

When “Hollow Man,” Columbia Pictures’ gory, R-rated, science-fiction thriller starring Kevin Bacon as an invisible scientist, hit the screens last summer, TV commercials for the film appeared on shows popular with young viewers such as “Star Trek: Voyager,” “Boy Meets World,” “Digimon: Digital Monsters” and even the Disney movie “The Parent Trap.”

And, to hype its sexually graphic, R-rated summer spoof “Scary Movie,” which includes scenes in which trick-or-treaters are clubbed with a baseball bat and a woman has her head cut off, Dimension Films bought commercial time on teen shows such as “Malcolm in the Middle,” “Felicity,” and the family-oriented films “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” and “Adventures in Babysitting.”

These findings, compiled by Competitive Media Reporting, a New York-based company that monitors advertising in the media, document in detail the extent to which Hollywood studios have used family- and teen-oriented TV shows to market their violent, R-rated films.

They show that in July, for example, Sony ran 318 TV spots for “Hollow Man” on local affiliates showing “The Simpsons.” Commercials for the R-rated film also ran during “Good Times,” “King of the Hill,” “Party of Five,” “Step by Step,” various “Star Trek” programs and even the family movie “The Amazing Panda Adventure.”

Dimension, an arm of Miramax Films, focused its television ads for “Scary Movie” on such adult-oriented prime-time network programs as “Friends” and “The Drew Carey Show,” but also ran ads on teen-oriented programs such as “Family Matters,” “Freaks and Geeks,” and “Malcolm in the Middle,” according to CMR.

When New Line mounted its advertising blitz in August for “The Cell,” it virtually blanketed the spectrum of hit prime-time programs such as “Friends,” “Frasier,” “3rd Rock From the Sun” and “Drew Carey.” But that only tells part of the story.

New Line also ran 395 spot-TV commercials for “The Cell” on local affiliates showing “The Simpsons” and 138 spot ads on stations airing reruns of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Commercials also ran on such family-oriented programs as “Family Guy,” “Full House,” “Home Improvement” and “That ‘70s Show.”

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In a report issued in September, the Federal Trade Commission looked at the massive television campaigns waged by Hollywood studios for their R-rated movies and found that of the 35 R-rated films that targeted children under 17, studio media plans for 26 of those films were designed around a target audience including children as young as 12.

The commission found that one of the ways studios reach younger viewers is by purchasing advertising on local stations--a process referred to as “spot-TV buys”--on weekends, and during the “early fringe” and “prime access” hours, such as after school and before prime-time network programming begins at 8 p.m.

As one studio’s media plan quoted in the FTC report blatantly stated: “Spot TV was used heavily throughout the campaign to capitalize on its ability to reach teens in early fringe, access and during the weekends.” This same plan also noted how spot-TV advertising could be used to evade some network restrictions on advertising R-rated movies on certain shows.

“Prime programs that could not be cleared in network due to the R rating were purchased in spot TV instead,” the commission found, offering examples such as “The Simpsons” on Fox and ABC’s youth-oriented lineup of shows on Friday nights called “TGIF.”

Responding to the problem, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinema, MGM and Miramax Films have decided not to run ads for R-rated films on any programs where 35% or more of the viewers are 17 and younger.

But how much of a difference will that make? The reality is that few prime-time network programs reach this arbitrary plateau. Indeed, some of the most-watched programs on television attract millions of young viewers every night. And even shows aimed at a younger audience rarely reach the 35% threshold. The WB network has cultivated a young viewership through its hip teen shows such as “Dawson’s Creek,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Felicity.” But none of those three programs would be off-limits to violent, R-rated movie ads given the 35% threshold.

Brad Turell, a spokesman for the WB, notes that during the first week of October, for example, the percentage of viewers 17 and under who watched “Dawson’s Creek” was 33%; “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” 29%; and “Felicity,” 27%.

The FTC studied studio marketing materials of 44 R-rated movies and found that 28 films--or 64%--contained express statements that the films’ target audience included children under 17. Seven other R-rated films appeared to be targeting those under 17, the commission reported.

Hauled before the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a phalanx of studio executives sat under the glare of TV lights on Capitol Hill as lawmakers lambasted the industry, some threatening to enact legislation if the movie studios didn’t take steps to rein in their marketing practices to children.

McCain has given the major studios a month to provide details of their in-house marketing plans and policies, and is expected to ask the FTC to monitor closely and often how well the studios live up to promises that they stop marketing violent movies to minors.

Trying to contain the public relations damage, the studios and the Motion Picture Assn. of America agreed to follow a 12-point program that included a pledge by the companies to “further the goal of not inappropriately specifically targeting children in its advertising of films rated R for violence.”

Now, the controversy is moving into a new phase as each studio grapples individually with how to carry out its commitments so they can show what good-faith steps they are taking to make sure their marketing doesn’t excessively target children.

Although each studio has expressed the goal of limiting the exposure of children to R-rated movie ads, there is no uniform approach.

The most sweeping ban is at Warner Bros., which has said it simply will not run R-rated movie ads on TV programs where 35% of the viewers are under 17.

Fox has said it won’t run R-rated movie ads on broadcast outlets but is saying nothing about cable outlets like MTV.

Meanwhile, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks all essentially said they will make decisions on a film-by-film basis and not set an arbitrary percentage. Disney will not run ads on programs airing before 9 p.m., except for news shows and sporting events, and will evaluate programs after 9 p.m. to see if they are appropriate.

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But even if studios eliminate ads for violent R-rated movies on TV programs where 35% or more of the viewers are under 17, they will still find it virtually impossible to avoid reaching millions of youngsters.

Studios will still have a green light, if they so choose, to advertise their R-rated movies on programs like “Friends” and “3rd Rock From the Sun”--programs that all fall under the 35% threshold for underage viewers--yet, in real numbers, attract an average of 1 million to 4 million young viewers.

Even MTV, according to the network, doesn’t reach the 35% plateau, saying that two-thirds of its audience are 18 or older.

The studios say they chose the 35% threshold because that is the percentage the FTC advocated in its report, but commission officials note they did not recommend that studios adopt that percentage.

“No, we’re not asking the studios to adopt any specific number,” said Lee Peeler, associate director for advertising practices at the FTC in Washington. The 35% figure, he noted, was used to judge the print media, “not the TV media.”

If the studios really wanted to limit the number of children 17 and under watching ads for R-rated movies, they would also look at shows with the biggest ratings. Consider:

* Only 14% of the audience for “Survivor,” the runaway summer hit on CBS, was 17 and under, yet in total numbers, an average of 3.95 million youngsters watched the show.

* The ABC hit game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” averaged only 11% children 17 and under, yet in real numbers it drew an average of 2.2 million young viewers over the summer.

* Only 12% of the audience for NBC’s perennial hit “Friends” was 17 and under during the summer, yet in real numbers there were 1.2 million viewers 17 and under.

In fact, if you take the overall viewing audience for all shows last season, the number is 261 million--but only about 20% of that is composed of teens and younger children. In other words, a show must attract an under-17 audience that far exceeds its percentage of the population to reach the 35% cutoff.

“It’s a real conundrum,” said Michael A. Vorhaus, managing director of Frank N. Magid Associates, a Studio City-based media consumer research and consulting firm, which works with studios, exhibitors and TV stations on everything from testing pilots to advertising.

“If you want to advertise to attract 18- to 24-year-olds to a movie, it’s difficult to avoid advertising to 11- to 17-year-olds,” Vorhaus said. “They watch a lot of the same TV shows as adults.”

MPAA President Jack Valenti said there is no way the studios can totally avoid reaching children with their ads, given that 63% of today’s U.S. households have TV sets in children’s bedrooms.

“If you have the Super Bowl and 85% are over 18, but millions of kids are watching, that doesn’t exclude [the studios] from advertising during the Super Bowl,” Valenti said. “To me, a show that has 80% or so [adult] demographics is legitimate advertising. . . . There isn’t a single show on television that kids aren’t watching. It is everywhere. Therefore, it is physically impossible to say, ‘I am not going to advertise on shows where children are watching.’ ”

Valenti said the MPAA’s 12-point program is intended to curb R-rated movie ads on TV programs that adults don’t normally watch.

“What I am interested in is that everybody has agreed to the 12 points,” Valenti said. “I said that any of them that wanted to go beyond that, it’s fine with me.”

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The WB network has a policy that it will not accept ads for any R-rated movies on G-rated shows such as “7th Heaven,” “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” or “Gilmore Girls.”

Yet, last summer, the network allowed commercials for “Scary Movie” to run on the high school series “Popular,” a comedy-drama that explores the virtually universal quest for popularity and acceptance within the teen caste system. The series draws more than 35% of its viewership from children 17 and under. Turell said the network will not accept R-rated movie ads this season on the show, which moved to Friday nights.

The Fox network, which like the WB reaches a younger audience, recently banned all R-rated movie ads on three of its animated shows--”The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill” and “Futurama”--because those shows draw substantial numbers of children and young teens.

“We recognize we have a responsibility to help parents and children make informed choices about entertainment,” said Bob Quicksilver, president of network distribution for Fox Broadcasting Co. At the same time, he added, Fox will also keep such commercials off any other shows where they anticipate 35% of the audience is under age 17.

That decision is a major blow to the studios because “The Simpsons” is just the sort of hip program that marketing executives covet when trying to reach young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. “The Cell,” “Hollow Man” and “Scary Movie,” for example, all advertised heavily on “The Simpsons” last summer.

Another worry facing studios is, what to do about MTV?

The FTC noted in its reports that MTV, with its core audience ages 12 to 24, was the largest advertising cable outlet for almost every motion picture the commission examined, in terms of both the quantity of ads and the target audience reached. For some of the movies targeting particularly young audiences, the commission noted, “it was not uncommon for a studio to use MTV to achieve over 50% of its cable audience exposure.”

Now, MTV may no longer be an attractive option for some studios.

One studio source who asked not to be identified put it this way: “This basically puts us out of the MTV business on all R-rated movies.”

One problem with MTV, as studio marketing executives see it, is that the cable network does not usually sell commercial time for specific shows on specific nights like ABC, CBS and NBC do. Instead, MTV sells what it calls the “run of the schedule,” meaning that it reserves the right to run the ads any time throughout the day on any program, provided it is deemed appropriate for that audience. The network calls it “total day buying.”

“If we think something is appropriate for an older audience,” said MTV spokeswoman Carole Robinson, “we will air it during a time that is appropriate for that audience.”

She stressed that MTV believes it can accommodate even those studios who abide by a 35% target.

“We will still accept commercials for R-rated movies and put them through our standards process and work with the studios to craft an advertising schedule that meets everybody’s needs,” she said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

And Now, a Few Messages From R-Rated Movies

Here are some of the TV shows or movies shown on TV with large under-17 audiences that featured ads for “Scary Movie,” “Hollow Man” and “The Cell” during the summer.

“SCARY MOVIE”

3rd Rock From the Sun

Adventures in Babysitting

Boy Meets World

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Dawson’s Creek

The Drew Carey Show

Family Guy

Felicity Freaks and Geeks

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Friends

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Kids in the Hall

King of the Hill

Malcolm in the Middle

Popular

The Simpsons

Sister Sister

Star Trek: Voyager

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

“HOLLOW MAN”

3rd Rock From the Sun

Boy Meets World

Britney Spears in Hawaii

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Daria

Digimon: Digital Monsters

The Drew Carey Show

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Home Improvement

The Parent Trap

The Real World

Seinfeld

The Simpsons

Sister Sister

Star Trek: Voyager

That ‘70s Show

The Amazing Panda Adventure

“THE CELL”

3rd Rock From the Sun

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Daria

Digimon: Digital Monsters

Family Guy

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Friends

Futurama

Kids in the Hall

Star Trek: Voyager

The Simpsons

That ‘70s Show

WWF Smackdown!

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Source: Competitive Media Reporting (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Even TV shows with primarily adult audiences have large numbers of under-17 viewers. Here are the figures for some of the summer’s most popular shows from May 25 to Oct. 1.

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SHOW TELECASTS NETWORK AVERAGE AVERAGE VIEWERS VIEWERS 2-17 Survivor 13 CBS 28,245,000 3,951,000 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Suns.) 16 CBC 20,977,000 2,221,000 Big Brother (Weds.) 9 CBS 13,744,000 1,678,000 Friends 17 NBC 10,042,000 1,171,000 ER 15 NBC 9,985,000 992,000 The Simpsons 18 FOX 9,149,000 2,622,000 Malcolm in the Middle 18 FOX 8,685,000 2,677,000 The Drew Carey Show 17 ABC 8,648,000 1,284,000 That ‘70s Show 5 FOX 6,352,000 1,423,000 Buffy the Vampire Slayer 17 WB 3,051,000 891,000 Dawson’s Creek 18 WB 2,112,000 689,000 Popular 18 WB 1,880,000 753,000 Felicity 7 WB 1,666,000 458,000

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Source: Nielsen Media Research