Study: "For American Businessmen Primetime is Crimetime"

Good Guys and Bad Guys

With all of the public opinion research polls out there how many times have you ever been called to participate in one? It just so happens that yesterday I was called by a polling firm based out of Princeton and the subject just happened to be attitudes toward the mortgage loan industry.

As with all industries there are good guys and bad guys.

And evidently on television too. In a report called “Bad Company, For American Businessmen Primetime is Crimetime,” the conservative Media Research Group monitored over 100 episodes of top shows on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC during sweeps weeks. They found:

TV Overwhelmingly Negative toward Business: Negative plots about business and businessmen outnumbered positive ones by almost 4-to-1. Of the 39 episodes that included business-related plots or characters, 30 (77 percent) cast businessmen and commerce in a negative light.


Businessmen Are Villains, Not Heroes: When businessmen appeared on TV, they were up to no good. Only NBC’s “Medium” and “Las Vegas” featured businessmen in a consistently positive light.



TV Businessmen a Greater Threat to Society than Terrorists or Gangs: According to primetime TV, you are 21 times more likely to be kidnapped or murdered at the hands of a businessman than the mob. Businessmen also committed crimes five times more often than terrorists and four times more often than gangs.



Businessmen Almost as Likely to Commit a Serious Felony as Career Criminals: Businessmen turned up as kidnappers or murderers almost as often (21 times) as hardened criminals like drug dealers, child molesters and serial killers put together (23 times).



“Law & Order” Franchise Finds Businessmen Guilty: In the three popular NBC shows – “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” – almost 50 percent of the felonies (13 of 27) – mostly murders – were committed by businessmen.


The Worst Network: CBS was the worst of the four networks, offering up far more business criminals than private-sector heroes. Shows like “Cold Case,” “CSI: NY,” and “NCIS” stacked the deck against businessmen.



Best in Show: It’s ironic that network executives had to travel to the gambling and showgirl capital of America – Las Vegas – to portray business in a positive way. But NBC’s show of the same name used this positive narrative to counter “Law & Order’s” cynical portrayal of business.

One must always ask who is being the reflector or director when documenting trends. The web site refers to itself as “The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias.”

The Media Research Group’s Business and Media Institute is at least consistent – they released a report about a decade ago called “Businessmen Behaving Badly,” which found similar results. Of course, they also called Bryant Gumbel a leftist for an offhand remark making light of extreme right wing talk show host Ann Coulter’s recent bizarre comment about 911 widows enjoying their husband’s deaths.

If you like the new report two more are on the way, along with plans “to examine how businessmen are characterized on the silver screen and in TV news.”