NYT's: TV Networks "Douche" For Better Ratings

h/t an Ana Marie Cox Tweet where she's celebrating it.

It isn't as if even that would help, but .... The New York Times suggests television networks are turning to words like "douche" to win the ratings war with the unregulated cable channel market. Wow, such a clever way to try and do the same thing against their Web competition from the Times. Hats off to Pinch. In his case, douching might actually be a good idea.

If it is a strategy as they suggest, it's a misguided one. They'll likely lose at least as much as they think they might get from it. Both print and television are increasingly less relevant due to technology and the Internet. While it might benefit some current and previous notable co-hosts of The View, their problems go well beyond a little feminine hygiene, unfortunately, or not.

LOS ANGELES — On many nights this fall, it has been possible to tune in to broadcast network television during prime time and hear a character call someone else a “douche.”

In total, the word has surfaced at least 76 times already this year on 26 prime-time network series, according to research by the Parents Television Council, which compiled the statistics at the request of The New York Times. That is up from 30 uses on 15 shows in all of 2007 and just six instances on four programs in 2005.

Ever since George Carlin laid out the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” in 1972, television writers and broadcasters have been digging more deeply into the thesaurus, seizing on new ways to titillate, if not offend. And while the word “douche” is neither obscene nor profane — although this usage is certainly offensive to many people — it seems to represent the latest of broadcast television’s continuing efforts to expand the boundaries of taste, in part to stem the tide of defections by its audience to largely unregulated cable television.

As a result, words that previously were rarely heard on television suddenly turn up everywhere, while once unspeakable slurs become passé from overuse. The use of the word, “bitch,” for example, tripled in the last decade alone, growing to 1,277 uses on 685 shows in 2007 from 431 uses on 103 prime-time episodes in 1998.

Comments

[Joe]

As in Keith Olbermann is a douche?

[Pat]

I've noticed the editing of sh*t and f*** on television but the screeners allow the use of gd. None of it I want to watch with my kids.

[Kevin Paulk]

Just wait till "teabaggers" starts showing up on non-news, non-topical shows.

[Elmo]

Douchetastic .... http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bozell/2009/11/14/bozell-column-group-sex-gossip-girl

[sooze]

And they wonder why we turn it off in droves...