NOT a moment too soon, Hollywood/TV pornographers and sleaze merchants who demean and insult us with their toxic, free-flowing filth and idiotic trash, have hit a major speed bump. Culturally, something monumental – something very, very important – is happening in the US. Although, it seems, divers US voters are happy to swim in the same sewer as Bill Clinton, elsewhere a TV rebellion of unprecedented proportions is under way.

Despairing of urging morally stunted movie moguls to mend their ways, the powerful American Family Association (AFA) in 1996 launched nation-wide boycotts of the big corporate advertisers who sponsor, and thereby finance, Hollywood’s corrupt offerings. At the same time, millions of explanatory AFA letters went out to the big gun advertisers, complaining that mainstream Hollywood’s trashy productions "treat viewers like fools," they "tear away at the fabric of society," that the "institution of marriage is mocked, belittled, scorned, as is Christianity, tradition, morality."

They objected to the "ongoing promotion of the homosexual lifestyle," the "sedulous trivialisation of sex," the "adulation of criminals," the "glorification of violence and brutality." "No barrier, no tradition, is safe: what is presented is a profound affront to an educated nation." The Disney Corporation was a particular target.

Initially, Hollywood and the TV networks shrugged off these calls for moral restraint and more intelligent output. The boycott was termed "anachronistic," the boycotters derided as "rightwing crazies," seeking "to exercise a 1990s form of McCarthyism." Media critics termed the boycott "fascistic," "Hitlerite."

The ultraliberal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attacked what it described as "the self-proclaimed Merchants of Virtue … attempting to scare Americans into believing that the nation is in moral decline." The ACLU urged Hollywood and the networks "not to gutlessly cave in" to the pressure groups.

Ridicule cut no ice with the determined AFA, by now joined by the Catholic Church and the 16 million-strong Southern Baptist Convention, the Parents Television Council and many others, all determined to let the advertisers know they were offended by Hollywood’s sewer-quality output, that they demanded a healthier, more wholesome, electronic environment. And, of course, money talks.

By now, the unrelenting pressure was succeeding beyond anyone’s expectations. TV audiences were beginning to evaporate. A lot of stubborn executives were beginning to learn the brutal lessons of the market place. The entire purpose of buying advertising time on TV is to create a positive public perception of their particular product. If the programme that you are paying to sponsor winds up offending a significant segment of the audience, then you’ve undermined the entire basis of your advertising investment.

The pay-off? Late last year we saw the first significant results of the boycott. A group of America’s biggest corporate advertisers held a preparatory meeting, intent on using their collective sponsor strength to hold major producer companies to a higher standard of mass-audience entertainment. The group, called the Forum for Responsible Advertisers, included spokesmen from Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Ford Motors Co, General Motors, IBM, Coca-Cola, Sears, McDonald’s, Nestlé and Warner Lambert. Just by themselves, these companies spend billions of dollars sponsoring TV shows

Gretchen Briscoe, of Procter & Gamble, said the Forum "had become necessary because the actions of one company alone would not be enough to influence Hollywood. It’s going to take a collective industry effort."

This was the first big victory in the cultural battle against risqué, vulgar, sleazy and violent TV: was, indeed, the single most positive trend in the recent history of the entertainment industry. No matter how unwillingly, both Hollywood and the TV networks must take note of what is happening: or lose their major advertisers. Company to watch is Disney.