I don't get these people. They complain about what is on TV and complain about what is not on TV. They made Christmas an issue. They practically own Faux TV yet They are not represented enough on TV? Make up your mind folks.
Dec. 31, 2004, 12:45AM
Faith in a box
Conservative advocacy group says television has no respect for religion
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle News Services
Television entertainment programs mention God more often than they did in the mid-1990s but tend to depict organized religion negatively, according to a report by a conservative advocacy group.
Here are a few examples of the "negative depictions of religion" that dominate prime-time TV programming, according to the Parents Television Council:
*On the American Music Awards on ABC, host Jimmy Kimmel gives winners his personal rule: "No thanking God. God does not watch television. And if He did, He would not be watching this show. He would be watching Tarzan on the WB."
*On Fox's That '70s Show, Hyde explains wedding rules to Kelso: "You don't get paid to be best man. You do it for the satisfaction of nailing the hottest bridesmaid. It's in the Bible."
*On NBC's Will and Grace, Karen cheerfully suggests, "Let's go buy that historic church and turn it into a gay bar."
In preparing its report, which was released last month, Parents Television Council researchers observed 2,344 "treatments of religion" while watching virtually all prime-time entertainment programming on the broadcast networks during the 2003-04 season -- 2,385.5 hours in all.
These "treatments" ranged from a brief prayer to a portrayal of God in a scene. They judged 22.1 percent of the mentions positive, 24.4 percent negative and the rest neutral.
The report, Faith in a Box: Entertainment Television and Religion, is the council's sixth study of religion on television. The last one, from 1997, found far fewer mentions of the topic -- an average of one per hour, compared to three per hour last season.
While faith in general was most often treated favorably, any mention of a religious institution or member of the clergy was at least twice as likely to be negative as positive, the council said.
"Ninety percent of the American people believe in God," said Brent Bozell, the council's president. "It is an important issue to most people. Hollywood is attacking the very thing that they consider important in their own lives. Perhaps Hollywood ought to be changing its worldview."
His group singled out NBC, saying its mentions of religion were nearly 10 times more likely to be negative than positive. Law & Order episodes, which often use stories ripped from the headlines, helped skew those numbers, the group said.
Fox followed with 2.4 negative depictions for every positive one. WB and ABC tied with 1.2 negative for each positive, followed by UPN with one negative per 1.1 positive, CBS with one negative for every two positive, and Pax, "which did not have a single negative depiction."
NBC spokeswoman Shannon Jacobs said the network rejected the report's conclusion.
"It is never our intention to appear, nor do we accept the notion that we are, anti-religious," she said.
Here is the rest of the article:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/tv/2971907