Family hour gets raunchier, says watchdog

A television watchdog group released details of a study Wednesday that found that although the amount of sexual material on television during what was once called the “family hour” between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. has declined, what remains is “raunchier.” The study by L. Brent Bozell’s politically conservative Parents Television Council particularly criticized the growing number of references to oral sex and pornography, particularly pointing a finger at Fox’s Boston Public (‘probably the most objectionable family-hour show”), NBC’s Friends and UPN’s WWF Smackdown! UPN ranked first in overall objectionable content with 18.1 instances per hour, almost double that of NBC with 9.1 instances. Fox was third on the list with 7.8, followed by The WB with 7.5, ABC at 6.7 and CBS (which attracts a mostly older audience) with just 3.2. The study was released on the same day that CBS announced it has decided to move its increasingly explicit Big Brother 2 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.