Two months before its premiere, NBC's new boundary-pushing drama The Playboy Club is already being deemed insufficiently chaste for network TV. The Parents Television Council (PTC) released an open letter this week urging NBC affiliates around the country not to air the sex-tinged series, which follows the '60s birth of Chicago's first Playboy Club, saying it promotes pornography through its association with Hugh Hefner's skin-mag brand. So far, only Salt Lake City's NBC affiliate has announced it won't air the program. Should others follow suit? (Watch a trailer for the show.)
Yes. Boycott this show: "Putting a veneer of sophistication" on the porn industry is "disgraceful," says Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council. What sort of "public interest" does a program like The Playboy Club, with its inextricable ties to the sex industry, serve? Forget whether the "inexcusable" promos running during "family-friendly" programs like America's Got Talent are appropriate. The show shouldn't be airing at all.
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