Television

"Greetings from the slaughterhouse that is pop culture. Our most popular forms of entertainment -- TV, films and books -- have followed video games into a ferocious new realm of ultraviolence marked by increasingly graphic depictions of brutality." (October 30, 2005, Knight Ridder News Service, By David Hiltbrand)

At right is a picture taken from one of the many CSI tv programs, which helps illustrate the above.CSI

Canadian broadcasters are fond of pointing the finger of blame at their colleagues to the south, but they are just as willing and guilty of splashing blood on the small screen as their American cousins.

In 1999, Laval University's Centre d'etude sur les medias released a study indicating violence on Canadian television had grown at an alarming rate. The study noted violent acts on television increased 50% between 1995 and 1998. This, in spite of the fact that the Canadian Association of Broadcasters made a pledge in 1996 to take action on the issue.

Below is a promotion by YTV, which is a youth channel, for the so-called "adult" horror channel, Scream. Both were owned by the same Canadian broadcast conglomerate at the time. Interesting place to advertise an "adult" channel, isn't it?

Scream and YTV cross promotion campaign

Letter to Corus Entertainment Inc. re launch of Scream TV, June 25, 2021

Research studies

Studies on television can be found in the Research section. Click here

Copycat crimes

Information on crimes believed to be connected to television programs can be found in the Copycat Crimes section. Click here

Government attempts at regulation

Information on government actions regarding television can be found in the Government Action section. Click here

Violence against women

One of the disturbing trends noticed by television reviewers and commentators, is the shocking and explicit brutality committed against female characters.

Set on fire, shot, raped: welcome to prime time (2005)

Brutality against women prominent in 2005 TV season

Below is the jacket from the Nip and Tuck tv series when released on DVD.

Nip and Tuck DVD jacket

 

Are mass media creating a culture of rape? Column by Antonia Zerbisias, Toronto Star (2010)

Rolling Stone's gratuitously violent cover for vampire series, True Blood (2010)

Game show contestants use torture on French TV psychology test (2010)

Women in Peril, Parents Television Council report on violence against women on TV (2009)

Television and movies provide anti-social role models for girls (2008)

Ultraviolent atrocities saturate pop culture (2005)

Brutal violence goes mainstream (2005)

Dying to Entertain: information on Parents' Television Council report (2007)

Watch your language - you're on prime time (2006)

Letter to Ron Cohen, CBSC, re his Toronto Star column (2007)

Michigan kids urged to kick TV habit (2006)

Teens and the tube (2006)

Jurors warned to resist CSI effect (2008)

Courts feeling CSI effect (2006)

CSI effect on Canadian juries to be studied (2006)

Gore on CSI "too much" says Gary Sinese (2005)

Feeding sick interest in death (2005)

U.S. Broadcasters narrow in on "indecency" (2004)

Taking lessons from Littleton

The new culture war in the U.S. (2005)

Excellent Globe and Mail editorial - Sex and violence in a runaway culture (2005)

Selling new digital channels with exploitation (2004)

Study links teen sex to TV

CRTC adjudicates illegal programming complaint (2004)

Uncensored content proposed for TV (2004)

The Shield offers no buffer from brutality (2003)

Baby eating spectacle on TV sickens Brits (2002)

TV turns to gore (2002)

Violence finds a niche in children's cartoons (2001)

Reality tv for psychopaths on Court TV (2000)

Violence on Canadian TV growing, study says (1999)

The man who won't do lunch - item on a CRTC commissioner who refuses to cozy up to media industry (2002)

TV's ultimate irony: sex and violence sells only sex and violence (2001)

The unpleasant realities of reality TV (2000)

TV violence warnings tune teens into ads (1997)

The Chair - torture TV (2002)

Tops & Bottoms on TVO Ontario - Just what was that drek? (2002)

Minister Sihota to kick tv violence in the revenues (1999)

Bawdy slam: tv wrestling delivers a tide of sleaze (1999)

Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment (C-CAVE) - brief to CRTC (1998)