Ottawa, March 6, 2002 – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning the broadcast of the National Film Board documentary film Give Me Your Soul by the specialty service Bravo! from 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm EST. The subject of the documentary was the commercial pornography industry and it included interviews with pornography producers, performers and critics. It also followed an 18-year-old girl’s quest to become a pornography star. The result of the broadcast of the documentary from 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm in Ontario, the province of origin, was its availability in British Columbia from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm. The complainants complained about the broadcast of “such pornographic and inappropriate subject matter when young viewers have access to the TV” in their area.
With respect to the sexually explicit content, the CBSC National Specialty Services Panel determined that the film was not exploitative in any way. It dealt with “men and women neither to the exclusion nor detriment of the other.” Nonetheless, the Panel was clear as to the principal issue of concern, namely, that the film “consists of material which, in the view of the Panel and the complainants, is intended for adult audiences, the criterion which triggers the Watershed requirement.”
The Panel also addressed the principal issue of concern to the complainants, namely, that this adult-oriented documentary appeared at 6:00 pm Pacific time. It dealt with the provision in the Violence Code which prohibits the broadcast of any scenes intended for adult audiences before 9:00 pm, and with the exception to this rule which, taking into account the breadth of Canada, states:
To accommodate the reality of time zone differences, and Canadian distant signal importation, these guidelines shall be applied to the time zone in which the signal originates.
While acknowledging the viewer dilemma that this technological factor creates, the Panel found no breach of the scheduling provision in the Violence Code in light of the exception to the 9:00 pm Watershed rule.
In its decision, the Panel did, however, refer to the CRTC’s Policy on Violence in Television Programming, which encourages broadcasters to be sensitive to Canada’s time zone differences when scheduling adult programming. The Panel also acknowledged that, regrettably, Western viewers may need to be more vigilant in choosing appropriate programming, but it did underscore “the very good news [...] that there are, at the very least, tools available for the purpose of responsible program selection”, which include classification icons, viewer advisories and the V-Chip (which was itself created by a Canadian, Dr. Tim Collings of Simon Fraser University).
Canada’s private broadcasters have themselves created industry standards in the form of Codes on ethics, gender portrayal and television violence by which they expect the members of their profession will abide. In 1990, they also created the CBSC, which is the self-regulatory body with the responsibility of administering those professional broadcast Codes, as well as the Code dealing with journalistic practices first created by the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada (RTNDA) in 1970. More than 500 radio and television stations and specialty services from across Canada are members of the Council.
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All CBSC decisions, Codes, links to members’ and other web sites, and related information are available on the World Wide Web at www.cbsc.ca. For more information, please contact the National Chair of the CBSC, Ron Cohen, at (###) ###-####.