Ottawa, December 7, 1999 – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning a radio contest promoted by CJKR-FM (Winnipeg) in which a woman rode a bicycle in the nude on a main street in the centre of Winnipeg at rush hour for a chance to win $10,000. Complainants stated that “it is completely tasteless and morally wrong to pay someone to do an embarrassing stunt such as the one performed by this woman” and that by the station “treated women as sexual objects” by promoting this contest.
The Prairie Regional Council considered the complaint under Clause 11 of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) Code of Ethics which deals with station contests and promotions, as well as under Clause 4 of the Sex-Role Portrayal Code. The Council found that the contest in question breached both these Code provisions. With respect to the violation of the contests and promotions provision, the Council made its finding “on the grounds of public disturbance or inconvenience”.
It is perfectly obvious to the Council that a nude woman (or, the Council assumes, a nude man) cycling down the principal avenue of one of the nation’s largest cities could reasonably be expected to constitute a distraction for drivers.
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It does not require great imagination to understand that such a distraction on a major thoroughfare would in fact cause that very public inconvenience or disturbance which was envisaged by the codifiers.
On the issue of sex-role portrayal, the Council noted that the contest appeared to be an “equal opportunity” one, that is to say, that “the offer by the station was for anyone who would ride a bicycle in the stated location in the nude.” Accordingly, the Council stated that it “can make no finding as to the creation of the concept itself of the stunt under the Sex-Role Portrayal Code”. Considering then how the stunt unfolded, the Council referred to the principle in “Clause 4 [which] provides that ‘camera focus on areas of the body and similar modes of portrayal should not be degrading to either sex’”, noting that “the operative word is ‘focus’”.
This is clearly a case in which BJ, Hal and Chuck were focussing on Leigh M’s state of undress and making comments degrading to her as a woman. ... They talked about “doing her”, utterly without justification; they focussed on how she looked rather than what she was doing; they wanted her to “sit straight up on that saddle” in order, evidently, to “show her wares”. Consequently, the Council finds the station in breach of Clause 4 of the Sex-Role Portrayal Code.
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 (###) ###-####.