Putting A Brake on TV "Sleaze"

By Richard Zoglin

TV's sin-and-sex parade marches on. Highlights on last week's tabloid shows ranged from a story on "the undercover Romeo," a drug informant who allegedly lured innocent women into dope deals, to an ogling visit to a topless coffee shop. Can't something be done, critics and concerned viewers cry, about such tasteless shows? Now a campaign against TV sleaze appears to be gathering steam. But the cure may be worse than the disease.

The issue leaped to the fore two weeks ago, when a Michigan housewife, Terry Rakolta, became an instant celebrity for her successful letter-writing campaign against the bawdy Fox network sitcom Married . . . With Children. Responding to her complaints, several major advertisers, including Kimberly- Clark and Procter & Gamble, said they would no longer run ads on the show because of its "offensive" content. The sitcom -- Fox's highest-rated show -- is in no mortal danger: ad time is sold out for the season, Fox officials say, and only one company, Tambrands, actually canceled a scheduled commercial because of Rakolta's complaints.

Her one-woman ground swell, however, has exposed a growing skittishness among advertisers. While many are "tonnage" buyers, willing to place their commercials anywhere, others carefully select shows in order to avoid being associated with questionable material. With the proliferation of so-called trash TV, the number of troublesome programs has multiplied. Among them are such tabloid shows as A Current Affair, Inside Edition and The Reporters; sensational talk programs like The Morton Downey Jr. Show and Geraldo; and occasional over-the-edge network offerings like Geraldo Rivera's NBC special last fall on Satanism.

Most of these shows do quite well in the ratings. But as the Married . . . With Children flap demonstrated, ratings are not everything, even along Madison Avenue. "What Married . . . With Children has done is make everybody take a sharper look at standards," says Betsy Frank, a senior vice president of Saatchi & Saatchi advertising. NBC, under attack for its low-road programming, is re-creating the position of vice president of program standards and policy, eliminated last year for budgetary reasons. The network is also setting up meetings with ad executives to explain its policy for screening out offensive material.

In a TV marketplace that seems to be operating with fewer and fewer restraints, it is ironic that advertisers have become the new guardians of quality. The trouble is: Whose definition of quality? Campaigns against "tasteless" shows usually come from the most conservative elements of American society. One pressure group, Christian Leaders for Responsible TV, is making plans to monitor TV programming this spring and to organize a boycott of major sponsors of "anti-Christian" shows. Rakolta's objections to Married . . . With Children managed to miss totally the show's satirical point. This sitcom family -- male-chauvinist husband, unliberated wife, sluttish teenage daughter -- is being lampooned by exaggeration. The same sort of complaints -- just as misguided -- were launched against the bigoted Archie Bunker in the early 1970s.

One does not have to like Married . . . With Children or TV's tabloid shows to be disturbed by campaigns to drive them from the air. Advertiser boycotts, if successful, do not make TV better, only blander. They also reveal a remarkable lack of faith in the ability of viewers to lodge the ultimate protest: turning off the set.

With reporting by Mary Cronin and Naushad S. Mehta/New York