In reality, the article proves that a single nonprofit can have an impact on public policy if it represents a large number of people, and if it can motivate its base. The internet is the vehicle that has powered this deluge of complaints.

In 2001, NPA's Rick Christ started working with PTC's direct marketing agency, Lawrence Direct Marketing Inc., on a viral email campaign to support their existing direct mail campaign and build their online supporter base. Initial email efforts were aimed at sponsors of early evening programming that contained excessive violence or sexual content. (Remember "Temptation Island" on Fox?) Networks like Fox scoffed at the PTC protests, but a number of sponsors agreed with PTC and pulled their support of such programming. An FCC commissioner said they had received very few complaints from individuals and could not act on indecency without such a complaint.

The PTC decided it could help its supporters generate official complaints to the FCC and proceeded to change its advocacy efforts to do just that. We discovered that the FCC had no online form for indecency complaints, but only for complaints involving telephone service. (The FCC still has no online form for indecency complaints). Undaunted, we created such a form at the PTC web site and forwarded all complaints via email to the sponsor, the network, and the FCC.

When the FCC failed to act on these complaints, and various members of Congress made public statements about the FCC's failure to act, we modified our tactics yet again, and offered supporters the opportunity to send a copy of their FCC complaint to their elected representatives, requesting that the Congress demand action by the FCC.

The result is that, in 2003, over 240,000 complaints were filed by individuals with the FCC. According to the MediaWeek article, 99.8% of them were driven by the PTC's action. So far in 2004, the FCC has received over one million complaints. Half of those concerned the Janet Jackson breast-baring incident during the Super Bowl in January. Of the other half, the vast majority are still being generated by PTC supporters.

FCC Commissioner Michael Powell is quoted in the MediaWeek article as saying, "Advocacy groups do generate many complaints, as our critics note, but that's not unusual in today's Internet world…that fact does not minimize the merits of the groups' concerns."

It's no wonder that the media is worried now. Fines of several hundreds of thousands of dollars have been levied upon offensive radio and television broadcasts, and the maximum fines have been doubled for future offenses.

All of this has been very, very good for the Parents Television Council.

February 2005