GATINEAU – Airing a show called Sex Traffic prior to the watershed hour of 9 p.m. is a no-no, the CRTC told the CBC today.
The Commission actually ruled on two complaints today (the first of which concerned a broadcast from April 2005) and said that "by airing Sex Traffic and Old School at 8:00 p.m., the licensee did not meet the Canadian broadcasting policy objective set out in the Broadcasting Act that programming should be of high standard," reads the decision.
"The Commission further finds that the broadcast of Sex Traffic at 8:00 p.m. was a violation of the watershed provision of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Voluntary code regarding violence on television, to which the CBC must adhere by condition of licence."
The docu-drama Sex Traffic is about the trafficking of Eastern European women in the sex-slave trade. The complainant objected to the graphic portrayal of rape and argued that "while the message the CBC was trying to get across needs attention and awareness, there is no excuse for putting that kind of content to the public," he said.
"The complainant was of the view that such content was entirely inappropriate for broadcast on television, especially when aired by a public broadcaster. Finally, the complainant emphasized his concern that the program had been broadcast in prime time," said the Commission’s decision today.
While the Commission didn’t object to the content in the way the complainant did, it did tell the CBC that airing it prior to 9 p.m. was wrong., despite viewer advisories.
The CRTC had similar things to say about Old School – a silly frat-boy movie with much nudity and drunkenness, but also expressed concerns about the CBC’s logger tape capabilities. "On 6 September 2005, the Commission asked the CBC to provide a more detailed response to the complainant and to supply the Commission with a logger tape of the broadcast in question. Despite two reminders for a response to this request, the CBC did not provide any additional written response. It was not until February 2006 that CBC provided the Commission with a DVD version of the movie, rather than a logger tape of the broadcast, as requested," said the Commission.
