The Parents Television Council takes the occasion of whatever that was Miley Cyrus did at the MTV Video Music Awards to be appalled,  and, according to Breitbart, call for action:

The Parents Television Council (PTC), outraged at the sexual acts displayed at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) has called for Congress to pass the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013 (S. 912).

The act would change the way cable television is packaged and sold to the public. Currently, cable networks are joined with others by cable companies so consumers cannot buy one without buying some or all of them. The bill in question would let consumers pay for only the cable networks they want.

The MTV awards show, which was approved for viewers as young as 14, featured Lady Gaga stripping down to a thong and Miley Cyrus, wearing a flesh-colored bikini, using a foam novelty hand to simulate sexual acts and “twerking” in front of singer Robin Thicke.

PTC Director of Public Policy Dan Isett blistered MTV for marketing “adults-only material to children while falsely manipulating the content rating to make parents think the content was safe for their children.” He added, “How is this image of former child star Miley Cyrus appropriate for 14-year-olds? How is it appropriate for 14-year-olds to see a condom commercial and a promo for an R-rated movie during the first commercial break?” …

But the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013, which has been read in the Senate, has not seen the light of day since then. That pleases the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which argues that the present situation gives consumers “a wider variety of viewing options [and] increased programming diversity.”

Islett concluded, “After MTV’s display last night, it’s time to give control back to consumers.”

I didn’t watch, but I’ve seen enough online outrage to comment on the bigger issues, which have little to do with Cyrus or Thicke. (Beyond saying that, as a father, Billy Ray and Alan, respectively, must be really proud. End sarcasm.)

Before a bit of TV 101, this Gen X-er (part of a group who says: MTV plays music videos?) must pass on this E! reaction from Brooke Shields, who played Cyrus’ mother in Disney’s Hannah Montana:

“I just want to know who’s advising her, and why it’s necessary,” Shield’s says of Cyrus’ VMA display. “I mean the whole finger thing and the hand and Robin [Thicke] probably at that point was going, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“[Our children] can’t watch that,” she added. “I feel like it’s a bit desperate.” …

And after Today cohost Willie Geist notes there’s a big “Disney overcorrection,” Shields wholeheartedly agrees, saying how Miley has been trying to distance herself from her Disney reputation since the end of Hannah Montana (remember “Can’t Be Tamed”?)

“We noticed that when we went to her concert with my daughters, who were obsessed, and they met her when I was playing her mother. And then we went to her Miley Cyrus concert and it was a very different vibe,” she explained. “You could see her trying so hard to go against that…She can sing beautifully, and I feel like if she lets that lead, rather than let her bottom lead….And the tongue out, and I think it’s just a little desperate… trying so, so hard.”

That reaction came from someone who (1) played a child prostitute at age 12 in “Pretty Baby,” (2) played a shipwrecked girl who discovers human biology with her same-age shipwreckmate in “The Blue Lagoon,” and (3) starred in “Endless Love,” which originally got an X rating, all before her 18th birthday. (And I know this because she was born four days before I was; the answer to whether I have seen any of those depends on whether my mother is reading this blog.)

Wisconsin Time Warner Cable subscribers who didn’t realize this before now know after having missed two Packers preseason games that neither broadcast or cable channels nor cable operators (and, for that matter, satellite providers) are on their side  Every media company in this paragraph is a business interested first and foremost in making money.

MTV is part of Viacom, which owns or controls CBS, BET, CBS Sports Network, CMT, Comedy Central, Epix, Flix, Logo TV, the Movie Channel(s), MTV2, Nickelodeon and its variants, Showtime and its variations, Spike, TV Land and VH1.

If that seems like a lot, consider the holdings of NBCUniversal — NBC, Bravo, CNBC, the Comcast sports channels, E!, G4, the Golf Channel, MSNBC, NBC Sports Network, Oxygen, qubo, Style, Syfy, Telemundo, USA Network, and The Weather Channel. Fox owns or controls Fox TV, the Big Ten Network, Fox Business, Fox College Sports, Fox News Channel, Fox Sports 1 and 2, the regional Fox Sports Channels, FX, FXX (a channel geared to 18- to 34-year-old men that starts Sunday) and National Geographic Channel.

Time Warner owns cable systems and Cartoon Network, CNN, HBO, HLN, TBS, TruTV, and Turner Classic Movies. Disney owns or controls ABC, ABC Family, ABC News Now, Disney Channel Live Well, all the ESPNs and Soapnet, Disney also owns half of A+E, which includes A&E, Bio, History Channel and Lifetime.

Smaller players still own a lot of channels. Discovery Communications owns Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Military Channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, Science, and TLC. AMC Networks owns AMC, Sundance and WeTV. Starz LLC owns the Encore and Starz channels. Sports leagues and sports teams own their own channels too.

Bundling — that is, a package deal of a number of cable channels for a certain per-subscriber price — works for the programmer’s benefit because they provide the opportunity to reach more eyeballs. That should be obvious based on the past four paragraphs. Cable and satellite providers can turn around and inform prospective customers how many channels they get for one low monthly price.

The claim that a la carte pricing would mean consumers would pay less is probably not true from a per-channel-cost perspective. Cable companies have a way of ensuring they make money whether they supply you with 12 or 512 channels. If a la carte programming ever was instituted, cable and satellite companies would unquestionably add some kind of processing fee every month, as well as every time you added a channel, and every time you subtracted a channel. Marketing being what it is, the providers would probably charge, to use round numbers per month, $15 for five channels, $25 for 10 channels, $35 for 20 channels, and $50 for 50 channels to get customers to go for the bigger package. I can say that confidently because they’re already doing that, and a la carte pricing will not change the profit motive.

Does that mean you’re now paying for programming you don’t watch? Yes. You already do that even on free TV, because the cost of advertising your favorite products — on TV, radio, billboard or online, in print or via direct mail or skywriting airplane — is part of the cost of your favorite products, whether or not you see those ads. Cable channels make money by both advertising and subscriber fees passed on by cable or satellite companies.

TVs are already equipped with V-chips that, according to their advocate Bill Clinton, would keep children from watching things they shouldn’t watch according to the TV and cable ratings. More importantly, cable and satellite channels can be blocked by remote-control code. The kerfuffle over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl halftime “wardrobe malfunction” resulted in the networks’ adopting seven-second delays on the possibility that a player might utter a naughty word upon something not going right during a game. (Listen to a radio broadcast while you’re watching the same game and you’ll see what I mean.) I found that ridiculous even before I had TV-watching kids.

This father of three thinks we should be blunt about this: The children who saw that thing Miley Cyrus did are the children of parents who didn’t care what they watched Sunday night, or watched with them. What Cyrus did was probably gross to watch, but it meets no real (including legal) definition of obscenity. Complaints about clothed gyrations are as old as the movies’ Production Code, the Television Code and Elvis Presley. Anyone who assumes the VMAs will have merely music performances has never seen the VMAs, but more importantly has not seen the career progression, if you want to call it that, of Madonna and those she has inspired, if you want to call it that. In a world with Madonna, Pink and Lady Gaga in it, we should not be surprised that Cyrus decided to step up to the line of flashing or mooning the audience to get media attention.

And do not be deceived: This is all about media attention. Cyrus is an adult who should have at least some judgment about what she’s doing, or have enough sense to employ someone to advise her on her public image. We media consumers are guilty as accessories to the extent we pay attention to such stupid concepts as “buzz,” the quest for which prompted Cyrus’ VMA performance.

The PTC, or anyone else, is perfectly free to advocate what it wishes. (And commentators are free to display their own ignorance by claiming that opposition to Cyrus’ “twerking” is sexist or, believe it or don’t, racist.) In a country that supposedly values free expression, it is up to the viewer, and to parents, to exercise responsibility. No one had to watch the VMAs, and no one has to buy a single thing Miley Cyrus sells.