Kids Watching Ma-Rated Show

Fri., March 6, 1998

New York Daily News

Comedy Central’s animated series “South Park” is not just the hottest show on cable television these days. It’s also the only weekly program on any kind of TV to carry the TV-MA rating, which under the new content labeling is the designation for mature programming that could be unsuitable for children under 17.

In other words, based on the rating label applied by Comedy Central, this show about a group of foul-mouthed grammar school kids is not for kids.

According to a New York Daily News’ examination of the program’s ratings dating to August, roughly 6 percent of those watching are between the ages of 2 and 11. About 22 percent are between 12 and 17.

Looking at Nielsen numbers for the past four episodes - the show’s highest-rated efforts so far - some 280,000 kids 2-11 are setside. For comparison, NBC’s “Law & Order,” the top-rated broadcast show airing in “South Park’s” Wednesday 10 p.m. time period, draws 560,000 kids 2-11, about 3.9 percent of its total audience of 14.4 million viewers. (Nielsen estimates 6.55 million 2-11s are watching TV Wednesdays at 10.)

The less-than-MA viewership for the outrageously profane “South Park” is troubling to children’s TV experts. Peggy Charren, founder of Action for Children’s Television, finds fault with the show’s tone, the way the kids talk to each other and the way they toss around racial slurs.

“It’s the words they use in ordinary life, the cafeteria, in the school room, that’s dangerous to the democracy,” she said.

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