Parents Television Council says network’s move to 8pm “[throws children] under the bus.”
Adult Swim‘s announcement that it will be moving its broadcast time to 08:00pm has drawn the ire of the Parents Television Council or PTC, a media watchdog group.
The move is part of the channel’s plan to expand its programming by an hour starting this spring, but PTC president Tim Winter sees it as being dangerous to younger viewers.
“The network claims that they’re targeting adult males by moving ‘Adult Swim’ to an earlier hour, but in the process children are being thrown under the bus,” Winter says in an official statement.
He adds that “what’s particularly dangerous about Cartoon Network and ‘Adult Swim’ is that the content changes from being kid-friendly to adult-oriented not with the click of a remote, but with the tick of the clock.”
Adult Swim is an American cable channel that timeshares with Cartoon Network in the evening and early morning hours. Its programming is targeted toward adult male viewers, and includes the Toonami anime block which currently airs Space Dandy on a near-simulcast basis, as well as Sword Art Online, Bleach, and Naruto Shippuuden.
The PTC claims to be a “non-partisan” group on its website, although the organization’s choices of what it sees as objectionable content for TV suggests that it leans toward a more conservative viewpoint, especially so that it was founded by right-leaning activist L. Brent Bozell III.
SOURCES: New York Daily News, parentstv.org
