Not to be outdone by The Mirror, The Sunday Express has launched it’s own clean up TV campaign.
From The Sunday Express:
SUNDAY EXPRESS CRUSADE: CLEAN UP OUR TV
Sunday November 9,2008
By David Stephenson, Television Editor
IN THE face of a deepening crisis in trust over standards in broadcasting, the Sunday Express has launched a crusade to clean up television.
Against a background of 40,000 complaints about the offensive prank calls made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, the newspaper is behind a new Decency in Television charter.
The centrepiece of the new decency code is a ban on all swearing, before and after the 9pm watershed, with a £100,000 fine for offending broadcasters.
Echoing Mary Whitehouse’s Clean Up TV campaign, the charter stops short of censorship but urges the Government to overhaul the regulatory system. Watchdog Ofcom, which has no accountability to the public, has failed to prevent a decline in standards.
The BBC will next week show a shocking drama series, Apparitions, starring Martin Shaw, which features the skinning of a corpse in a gay sauna and graphic scenes of satanic ritual. ITV too is set to launch a new crime series, Above Suspicion, in which a corpse riddled with maggots is repeatedly shown. Robson Green’s Wire In The Blood has also been accused of showing too many gory scenes.
Meanwhile, the licence fee payer is set to pick up the bill for the Ross/Brand fiasco, with Ofcom considering fines of up to £1million for infringements of the Communications Act, which outlaws prank calls.
The Decency in TV charter has already received high-profile backing. Mediawatch, the broadcasting interest group, gave the code its full support.
Spokesman John Beyer said: “Michael Grade said that the use of the F-word and swearing generally was ‘unrestrained’ and ‘indiscriminate’.
“He is right on this but he is not against swearing on TV per se. He certainly understands that viewers are discontented and I guess he thinks if he improves language on ITV it will attract viewers away from other broadcasters. In this way, by improving programmes, he will reverse the fortunes of ITV. We have said for years, and not just about ITV, that this is the way to succeed.
“The real and lasting solution to this problem is to strengthen the Broadcasting Code, which currently does not prohibit anything. Ofcom officials tell us that in regulating TV they cannot be more restrictive than the law allows but the use of obscene language in a public place is an offence. The problem is that the ‘front room’ is not a public place.”
He urged the Government to introduce a new Communications Act and said he was confident this was being considered by Culture Secretary Andy Burham.
The Charter was also backed by the producer of ITV’s most popular crime drama, Midsomer Murders, which returns next month with a Christmas special. Brian True-May said: “In response to last week’s complaints to Radio 2, we have banned all swearing, all graphic violence and all over-sexual scenes from Midsomer Murders.
“People just don’t like it. The murder is important, obviously, but showing so much blood as we did in the pilot, Badger’s Drift, is wrong now. There’s a big backlash in the industry about how far people go.”
Midsomer star John Nettles agreed. “I don’t think there was too much fuss about what happened over Ross and Brand. Too little fuss was made, frankly. It was extraordinary, unreformed laddishness with all kinds of awful vulgarities. It’s the assumptions they make about what will entertain us that is insulting for me.”
Co-star Tim Pigott-Smith said: “I can’t understand why TV tries to appeal to youth. The Ross/Brand broadcast was disgusting. People are fed up with broadcasters pushing the boundaries too far.”
Their comments follow those of such broadcasting legends as Sir Terry Wogan, who described the prank calls as absolutely unforgivable. “I just hope it’s not going to affect the public’s attitude to Radio 2,” he added. Backing the call to cut bad language in broadcasting, he said: “I think it’s unprofessional. I think some people think they will have more street cred with ‘the youth’ if they eff and blind.”
The BBC said it was sensitive to the issues raised by the Sunday Express. A spokesman said: “We agree that it is important that all broadcasters closely monitor the level and use of swearing.
“The BBC has clear guidelines which say the most offensive language should not be broadcast before the watershed and should be carefully labelled and needs to be justified by the context at other times.”
The country’s most popular commercial broadcaster was less supportive, however. An ITV spokesman said: “Michael Grade has outlined his view on the use of bad language on television, a position which is shared by Peter Fincham, ITV’s Director of Television, Channels and Online. An outright ban would be an overreaction but the use of swearing needs to be given careful consideration.”
Channel 4 said: “Channel 4 abides by the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and so the strongest language is only broadcast after the watershed and only where editorially justified, where it meets the expectations of our viewers and where preceded by an appropriate warning.”
Five, which last week ran a documentary, repeating the prank calls, said: “As a public sector broadcaster Five takes its obligations regarding language seriously.”
“the charter stops short of censorship”
Erm but….
“The centrepiece of the new decency code is a ban on all swearing, before and after the 9pm watershed, with a £100,000 fine for offending broadcasters.”
Which is censorship is it not?
Notice how The Sunday Express sites Appirations (which hasen’t even been broadcast yet) as an “offending” programme, which presuambly means they think it should be banned.
Their new “Decency Charter” is clearly for those who don’t know how a remote control works.
And whilst viewers may be unhappy about their being so much swearing on TV it’s highly unlikely they want whole programmes barred for airing just because one newspaper is crusading against them.
Of course Beyer and Mediawatch UK are all to happy to lend their support to the cause. It means more free publicity and (they hope) more much needed paying supporters.
“He certainly understands that viewers are discontented and I guess he thinks if he improves language on ITV it will attract viewers away from other broadcasters.”
Oh so it’s about attracting viewers from other broadcasters now is it Johnny Boy? We thought it was about stopping the “collapse of the very fabric of society”.
“The real and lasting solution to this problem is to strengthen the Broadcasting Code, which currently does not prohibit anything.”
Doesn’t prohibit anything that Beyer and Mediawatch UK don’t like. Yeah.
“The problem is that the ‘front room’ is not a public place.”
No it’s not. It’s very much a private place where people have a lot of control over what does and does not come in to that place. The thing is Mediawatch UK and other groups like them want to make the front room a public place by campaigning for laws and regulations that make what people watch, hear and play in their front rooms public buisness and laws and regulations that stop people watching, hearing and playing things that Mediawatch UK and other groups dissaprove of.
Again it seems the public want a reduction in the level and frequency of swearing on TV and in particular in programmes where it is niether neccessary or appropriate. But it’s not certain that they want the kind of blanket bans and outright censorship that The Sunday Express, Beyer and Mediawatch UK want.
July 2, 2009 at 12:44 pm |
check this out…
this is mine…