Ottawa, May 5, 2000 -- The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning the broadcast of an episode of the talk show Nite Lite on Crossroads Television (CITS-TV). A complaint had been received which stated that “there is seemingly no delay on what is said by a call-in person”, and alleged that the program contained comments of a sexual nature that “were said [in order] to offend not educate.”
In accordance with its ordinary practice, the CBSC had asked that the tapes of the show be held by the broadcaster pending resolution of the complaint; however, the broadcaster retained logger tapes of a different date than that requested. Consequently, the Ontario Regional Council was unable to assess the validity of the complaint. While the Council stated that it “has no reason to believe that this was a purposeful act”, it underscored “that inadvertence, innocent mistake or the acts of third parties which interfere with the preservation of requested logger tape are not and cannot be accepted as excuses for the non-availability of ... tapes”.
In finding that the broadcaster breached its requirements of membership in the CBSC, the Council stated:
The requirements of membership in the CBSC merely parallel the regulator’s exigencies. There should be no doubt that the retention of logger tapes by broadcasters is a cornerstone of the self-regulatory process. Because the CBSC is not an evidence-gathering body, it relies solely on the program tapes as the “evidence” of what was said or shown on the airwaves. It is these tapes alone which are the measure of the broadcaster’s compliance with the Codes to which all CBSC members adhere. The self-regulatory process relies on the availability of these tapes and the serious respect by broadcasters of any request by the CBSC Secretariat to retain these for as long as necessary while a file remains open. The members of the public who file complaints with the CBSC or which are referred to the CBSC by the Commission must have the sense of security that the broadcaster will comply with this requirement in order for them to retain faith in the process.
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 430 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 (###) ###-####.