Transformers and FCC Content Filtering Inquiry

The Transformers movies have been caught up in a content filtering inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that is being done for Congress. Apparently the goal is to come up with a compendium of all the various blocking, filtering and rating devices used by the various entertainment industries. As a result the many lobbyists are coming out of the woodwork to add their two cents. From Ars Technica:

Earlier this month the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed a response to a key question in the FCC's NOI—"the extent to which inappropriate commercials [are] aired in programming viewed by children and on possible solutions to this problem." CCFC was happy to oblige, updating the agency on one of its key campaigns. The group, a coalition of 30 media reform organizations, wants the Federal Trade Commission to "ensure that PG-13 movies are not marketed to young children." Bottom line: CCFC has asked the Motion Picture Association of America to limit television advertising of PG-13 movies to shows where over half of the viewers are thirteen or over, or just set 9:00pm as the "watershed" for the promotion of these films. That would put the ceiling an hour earlier than when TV stations can broadcast fare that the FCC defines as indecent.

CCFC complains of a phenomenon that it calls "ratings creep." Your typical PG-13 movie these days is more violent and sexual than it used to be, the group says. "In other words, many of the PG-13 films that are routinely marketed today to children as young as seven—and often marketed to preschoolers—are films that would have been rated R fifteen years ago." On top of that, parents have no tools that filter commercials for these movies, and "are left without any options by the current regime."

Read More »