Parents Television Council urges CBS affiliates to drop 'Dexter'

Officials at the Parents Television Council are encouraging people to contact their local CBS affiliates and ask them to stop airing a controversial drama that celebrates murder.

Because of the recent writer's strike, many television shows were on a production hiatus.  That is one reason CBS decided to move the drama Dexter from the Showtime cable network to a primetime slot on Sunday evenings. The show stars Michael Hall as Dexter Morgan, a forensics expert for the Miami Police Department who is also a serial killer. However, Dexter -- portrayed in the program as a "hero" -- only kills murderers who escape justice.
 
Dan Isett with the Parents Television Council says broadcasters do not have to show the controversial program. "Broadcasters only have a license from the federal government to broadcast in the public interest and convenience," says Isett. "So they must continue to have a higher standard of what they put on the air."
 
Isett says that although CBS claims Dexter is edited for broadcast television, it is still too graphic and violent for network television. A press release from PTC claims no amount of editing can remedy the biggest problem with the program.
 
"The series compels viewers to empathize with a serial killer, to root for him to prevail, to hope he doesn't get discovered," says the release. "[And it] introduces audiences to the depths of depravity and indifference as it chronicles the main character's troubled quest for vigilante justice by celebrating graphic, premeditated murder."
 
Dexter, says PTC, is "undoubtedly the worst example" of a documented industry trend to migrate adult-themed, graphic programming from premium cable to broadcast television and from time slots after 10 p.m. to earlier times of the day.