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NBC’s new series, The Playboy Club, is tanking in the ratings and hemorrhaging advertisers at an extraordinary rate, analysts are confirming.
Bill Gorman of TV By the Numbers writes that the networks have a .7 cancellation threshold established for Playboy Club.
According to Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly the already drooping show lost more ground in Week 2.
“And more bad news for The Playboy Club. The show earned a mere 1.3/3 – down 19 percent. Ladies and gentlemen, do we have our first casualty of the new season?” Rice wrote.
That’s only .6 points away from the threshold.
In its first week, the program only scored a 1.6 rating among adults in the 18-49 age group.
Morality in Media spokesman Lesley Bateman says the dramatic ratings drop is developing because the program’s premise is offensive to the public.
“We believe that people don’t find the show’s underlying theme appealing – that is, that ‘women get ahead in life through sexual objectification.’ This should be offensive to every woman in America,” Bateman observed.
Psychologist and culture critic Judith Reisman believes the ratings drop may be because people are becoming more aware of the criminal nature of the sex industry.
“I would think that it’s due to the increasing awareness of the growing sexual trafficking in women and children, especially from foreign countries,” Reisman said.
Morality in Media is running the “Close the Club” campaign, a project to urge parents and concerned citizens to contact the show’s advertisers and request that they pull their ads from Playboy Club.
Bateman reports that the program is succeeding because thousands have contacted NBC in response to the campaign.
Bateman says the advertisers “are getting the message.”
Even though Energizer batteries, Boston’s Emmanuel College and Weight Watchers still have ads on the program’s website, Bateman reports that Kraft Foods, the UPS Store, Lenovo, Subway, Sprint, PF Chang’s and Campbell’s Soup have pulled their advertising because the companies don’t want their name stained.
“Corporate America knows the importance of a good brand name – and apparently many companies understand that Americans like doing business with companies that hold values near to their own,” Bateman said.
“Several years ago a Time Magazine Poll found that 68 percent of respondents believed the entertainment industry had lost touch with viewers’ moral standards,” Bateman said.
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Tim Goodman says the program doesn’t live up to any of its intended objectives.
“It’s hard to imagine there’s still an allure to the ’60s Playboy Club swinging lifestyle, but if there is, ‘Playboy Club’ hasn’t illuminated it. Sure, it was a great party and you could make great tips,” Goodman wrote, quoting one of the characters who said, “I make more than my father.”
Goodman continues, “But in attempting to show that it wasn’t all glamour inside – a fair assumption and one the writers should be given credit for noting – the show undercuts what it seems to be trying hard to sell: that the club was a place for female empowerment,” Goodman continued.
Bateman agrees with that review and adds that not only is the dialogue exploitive, it’s also plainly bad.
“The dialogue is built upon justifying the show’s exploitation of women. It’s hard to create quality dialogue with that goal in mind,” Bateman said.
“Certainly the public senses that the dialogue is simple-minded. It’s hard not too laugh at lines like, ‘In my bunny suit, I’m in total control,’ and ‘I want to be a Playmate because I want to show people that I can do big things,'” Bateman added.
However, Reisman says the public’s outrage over Playboy Club is appropriate, but the pornography industry isn’t going to give up that easily on the effort to become mainstream. She says the reduced price for “Playboy” magazine is an example.
“‘Playboy’ is aiming its toxins at ever younger children, assuming that this is their future market for both buyers and sellers of sex,” Reisman stated.
“The need to keep their casino going in Las Vegas. They’ve prostituted women to get people to Vegas,” Reisman added.
Reisman notes that the most recent issue of “Playboy” is priced at only 60 cents.
“The 60 cent magazine with its swizzle stick is telling us a great deal about the need to capture the very young. Even children can afford a 60 cent price,” Reisman observed.
Reisman adds that the whole controversy over the NBC television series is a symptom of a deeper social problem.
“Indeed, our modern ‘hook-up’ culture is admittedly not their grandparents’ culture, the ‘Greatest Generation’ that saved the world,” Reisman explained.
“Kids sending their naked sex pics to friends is even getting some liberals nervous. The forced vaccinations of our children so that they can be had for sex is similarly ringing warning bells in the brains of those off the dumbing down grid,” Reisman continued.
“Naked parades in our public streets and parks under the pretense of ‘freedom,’ while children are increasingly sexually coarsened and violated could be resonating with a shaken American public,” Reisman said.
“However, with judges and legislators capitulating to politically correct rants on all things sexual, we have a great deal to do if we think we can survive as a free people,” Reisman added.