TV Attacked Again as Too Violent

This past television season was considered to be the most violent season as reported in a study recently released by the Parents Television Council.

The study, titled "Dying to Entertain Study," found that there were about 4.41 incidents of violence for every hour on prime-time television. In addition, the study's researchers found that guns were the most popular type of weapons used in violent scenes (63% of villains used guns).

In general the study found that violence on television has increased in all the time slots: a 45 percent increase between 8 and 9 p.m., 92 percent from 9 to 10 p.m. and 167 percent from 10 to 11 p.m.

Parents, the government and activist groups have been studying television and other forms of entertainment for decades now and while they have not come to a solid conclusion on what should be done about it, they have agreed on one thing: there is too much violence.

It does not matter if the issue is television (which was the target of the Parents Television Council study), or if it is music or video games. The entertainment industry has received the criticism that there is, in general, too much vulgarity (in the form of violence, sex and crime) in the media channels we watch, listen or play.

The biggest problem with this assertion is that people (including the government) continue to pour more and more money into expensive studies that do not do anything other than repeat what has already been said before. What is so interesting or ground breaking about the "Dying to Entertain Study" findings? The answer is simple: nothing.

Back when Tipper Gore started her organization to rid the airwaves and stores of filthy and indecent music, all that resulted out of that was the Parental Music Advisory label on many CD covers today. The label has since become a joke that does nothing to deter anyone from purchasing or thinking twice about purchasing a CD.

The point being, that no matter how many times groups continue to wave the argument that there is too much violence this does nothing to stop the same set of viewers from watching, listening or playing the thing that is considered so violent.