PTC Urges NBC Affiliates Not to Air ‘The Playboy Club’ Drama Series

The Parents Television Council is gearing up for another fight against what it deems to be a shameless violation of everything that is decent and appropriate. In a letter sent to NBC affiliates, the PTC is asking them to refuse to air the upcoming NBC drama series “The Playboy Club.”

The network is now working on a new series that will focus on the (in)famous Chicago Playboy Club in the ’60, starring Eddie Cibrian, among others.

After trying to prove that making a television series with “Playboy” in the name was wrong – and failing, obviously – the PTC is now aiming to convince affiliates to preempt the show from their fall schedules.

In a letter sent to them and obtained by Broadcasting & Cable, the PTC president Tim Winter says that the indecent series should not air because it adds a “veneer of sophistication” to the cruel and denigrating reality.

“I am writing to urge you, on behalf of the Parents Television Council’s 1.3 million members, to preempt the program in your community,” Winter writes, as per the aforementioned e-zine.

He also says that members of the PTC who took matters in their own hands and wrote to affiliates on the issue received “canned responses” in support of “a sophisticated series about the transitional times of the early 1960s and the complex lives of a group of working-class women.”

Should affiliates not pay any heed to the plea, the PTC promises to watch the new drama series like a hawk, with all its member ready to file complaints with the FCC the moment they notice anything indecent.

Broadcasting & Cable notes that complaints from the PTC also contributed to the CBS Super Bowl half-time show indecency fine, so it’s not like Winter is making empty threats.

While NBC remains mum on the topic – and will most likely go ahead with the new TV series as scheduled, one affiliate has already taken the necessary steps to preempt it from its fall schedule.

“KSL [Salt Lake City], which is owned by Deseret Media Companies, which, in turn is owned by the Mormon Church, said last month that the Playboy brand did not fit with the station’s brand, but that it would look to find another channel in the market to carry the show,” the e-zine notes.