PASADENA, Calif.— Parents seeking television family fare on Super Bowl Sunday should beware: In an effort to steal viewers during Fox's Feb. 3 airing of the game between the St. Louis Rams and the New England Patriots, NBC plans to feature six Playboy playmates on their reality-based “Fear Factor” program during halftime.

NBC's plan is to start the special hour-long edition of “Fear Factor” precisely when the football game, carried this season on the Fox network, breaks for the half. The show will interrupt a repeat and run for the 20 minutes of halftime, which will fall in the heart of Sunday evening prime time. When the game resumes, NBC will go back to the repeat and then pick up the remainder of the program at 10 p.m. EST when NBC has calculated that the game will be over.

Parents are dismayed by NBC's programming maneuver. “The Super Bowl has become a family tradition with my two sons. Our 10-year-old is anticipating watching the game with Daddy,” said Lisa Hendey, founder of CatholicMom.com of Fresno, Calif. “I'm deeply saddened that NBC would consider featuring Playmates during what has traditionally been a family viewing event … We'll turn the TV off at half-time.”

Leslie Graves, a Madison, Wis. mother of three, said she was astonished to hear of NBC's use of centerfolds. “Our 15-year-old daughter is a Packer fan and will probably be watching television with her dad,” she said. “I'm concerned about the message this sends to teenage girls. It's degrading and demeaning to women.”

On “Fear Factor,” contestants compete for cash by performing menacing and often stomach-turning stunts, such as dangling from bridges or having their bodies covered with squirming bugs or worms. NBC has not said what stunts the centerfolds will be performing.

The Feb. 3 “Fear Factor” episode is a stark departure from NBC's promise to provide family-friendly programming. Three years ago, Scott Sassa, NBC's West Coast president, told a meeting of the Television Critics Association that the network would have more family programs and less sexual content.

“We have obviously gotten the word out to producers that sex for sex's sake is not going to be a good thing,” Sassa was widely reported to have said. “Because we deal with adult-themed programming, there will be sexual content [on NBC], but it's going to have to be germane to the story line and not gratuitous.”

But following the network's reported lack of success with family programs such as “Daddio,” family fare is no longer a priority. “We don't see them as really the kinds of shows that are in our wheelhouse,” Sassa said Jan. 9, Associated Press reported. “They don't have the upscale demos that we want that would allow us to keep them on the air.”

Sassa stated that NBC is working instead to attract mature viewers with adult-oriented themes and dialogue, in the vein of HBO's “Sex in the City.” In December, NBC also became the first network to allow hard liquor ads.

‘Pornography’

Ed Vitagliano, director of research for the Tupelo-based American Family Association, said parents should be outraged by NBC's action. “For a TV network to basically ally itself with a producer of pornography is reprehensible,” he said. “Parents really need to make the effort to do whatever they can to try to encourage networks and advertisers to begin to draw back instead of rushing headlong into an ‘anything goes’ mentality.”

Said Robert Peters, president of New York-based Morality in Media, “It's one more proof that the television industry on the whole is morally and creatively bankrupt.” Vitagliano and Peters view such programming as the mainstreaming of pornography. “Playboy, without any question, is a major distributor of hardcore pornography,” said Peters. “They make most of their money from hardcore videos and cable.”

Playboy disagrees. “I don't think that NBC approached it with the intention that they are now in favor of X-rated material,” said Bill Farley, national director of communications for Playboy Enterprises. “Our name and logo are one of the best-known. Playboy has at least 10 million readers per month, so there is a built in audience.” He added that playmates have appeared on other programs like “Sex in the City,” NBC's “Just Shoot Me,” and “Family Feud.”

Playboy argues that since the playmates are not appearing on “Fear Factor” nude, it poses no problem. “Playmates are not pornographic and the program will not be pornographic in any way,” said Elizabeth Norris, director of public relations with Playboy. “They will be appearing on the show like any other contestants. Naturally, they are attractive and there will be a large male audience.”

By showing the playmates NBC obviously hopes to carve a piece out of the traditionally huge Super Bowl TV ratings, but the network has indicated it is even more concerned with creating a buzz. “If we don't get a rating it doesn't matter. We're going to be talked about,” said NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker, the New York Times.

Vitagliano says that television has been sliding downhill since networks quit regulating themselves in the late 1960s, and that the trend has increased dramatically in recent years.

“We have really seen an acceleration of the kinds of language, the kinds of explicit sexuality and sexual talk and even nudity— we've seen an acceleration of it that's almost beyond belief.”

Indeed, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's “Sex on TV: Content and Context” study found that programs with sexual content increased from 56% of shows in the 1997-1998 television season to 68% in the 1999-2000 season. And an American Academy of Pediatrics study reported that “family hour” (8 to 9 p.m.) now contains more than eight sexual incidents per hour, four times as many as in 1976.

Cyberspace Protests

In response, Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association is encouraging viewers to contact sponsors and encourage them not to advertise on morally questionable shows. The organization has launched an e-mail campaign featuring two separate Web sites— one for moms and one for dads. The goal of the two sites, OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com, is to recruit parents who will send one e-mail message per week to a sponsor, holding the company responsible for what it supports.

Parents who register at the Web sites will receive an e-mail once a week concerning a problematic program. The message will include a review of the program and an e-mail address that can be used to register a complaint.

Anti-pornography groups aren't the only ones concerned by TV's broadcasting of sleaze. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps believes that broadcasters have an obligation to decency.

Speaking before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Jan. 9, Copps said, “Every day I hear from Americans who are fed up with the patently offensive programming coming their way. When it comes to the broadcast media, the FCC has a statutory obligation to protect children from obscene, indecent or profane programming. I take this responsibility with the utmost seriousness,” he said. Copps added that he's concerned with the increase in sexually explicit and profane programming on radio and television, and the detrimental effects on children. “Our nation has enacted laws, constitutionally sanctioned laws, to protect young people from these excesses,” he said.

Pro-family advocates regard NBC's Super Bowl Sunday airing of “Fear Factor” as a prime example of marketing sex to youthful audiences. “The big audience isn't going to be football fans turning over to see this,” said Morality in Media's Peters. “Unfortunately, it will be kids and teens. They're the ones that are likely to turn the channel.”

Added Peters, “NBC is teaming up with a hardcore porn distributor to deliver up some softcore porn for America's teens and children. Hopefully the plan will fail. Beer, babes, and ball may be a great combination for a subset of football fans, but I don't believe most football fans are meatheads.”

Tim Drake is managing editor of catholic.net