Given that a racy Victoria’s Secret commercial with nearly-naked lingerie models aired during CBS’ premiere of Supergirl, the Parents Television Council (PTC) urged the network to reevaluate the placement of explicit advertisements within the show.
“For the first time in recent memory, CBS aired a primetime program that was high-quality, family-friendly, positive for young girls, and thoroughly entertaining. And the network was hugely rewarded with Supergirl garnering the largest audience for a new series this broadcast season. Unfortunately, the network couldn’t get out of its own way, inserting an explicit advertisement with sexually-charged images of nearly-naked women 46 minutes into the 60-minute program. Did the CBS ad sales team not take Marketing 101 in college? The commercial’s messaging was in total contradistinction to the messaging of the program, and it sent exactly the wrong message to young women and teens who tuned in to watch the show,” said PTC President Tim Winter.
“We applaud CBS for making a great programming decision by airing a wholesome program like Supergirl, featuring a positive female role model with such an appealing and modest heroine. We were proud to promote the premiere episode so enthusiastically to our members and to the public, and we are heartened by the episode’s wildly successful audience rating. But the reality is that the content of the Victoria’s Secret advertisement demonstrated the exact opposite of what Supergirl was intended to be all about. CBS could place any number of other sponsors into that advertising avail, and we encourage them to do so in coming episodes.
“Teen girls and young women are confronted by sexualized images in the media way too much as it is, which is the reason we created our ‘4 Every Girl’ Campaign , to help bring awareness to this critical issue. There should be at least one safe show for that audience, and Supergirl is a great option. Let’s keep it that way.”
Supergirl was named as one of the Parents Television Council’s Best New Fall TV Shows.
