Current Status
After Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's breast during a live performance at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show on February 1, 2004, a moral panic occurred, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tightened its indecency rules due to public pressure. As an instant result of the scandal, major networks edited some of their shows. CBS removed a shot of a naked man from Without a Trace, while NBC deleted a two-second shot of an elderly woman's breast from ER. Subsequently, prime time television networks became more reluctant to show even non-explicit nudity in their TV shows. In the current climate, nudity is almost unknown on any broadcast television show - with the exception being animated series such as The Simpsons and Family Guy (which spoofed the conservative phase of American television in the episode "PTV").
Cable television, on the other hand, is not bound by FCC rules and can show whatever material their executives consider suitable. While cable channels that rely on advertising still do not show nudity during primetime hours, nudity is often shown on premium cable channels such as Showtime and HBO. FX is one of the few commercially dependent cable channels that features nudity in its programming (notably the controversial Nip/Tuck). Discovery and other documentary-related channels may show nudity in a journalistic context, such as that of indigenous peoples.
While nudity practically disappeared from network television, a Kaiser Family Foundation study of sex on television released in November 2005 showed that TV characters are having sex twice as often as they were in 1998. The study examined more than 1,000 hours of programming.
Read more about this topic: Nudity In American Television
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or status:
“We hear the haunting presentiment of a dutiful middle age in the current reluctance of young people to select any option except the one they feel will impinge upon them the least.”
—Gail Sheehy (b. 1937)
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
—A.J. (Arthur James)