OTTAWA – A discussion about sex shops that aired on Bell Media's French-language channel VRAK did not reach the level of explicitness that would have necessitated a post-9:00 PM scheduling, says the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
The CBSC examined an episode of Code F, a program where young women give their opinions on various topics. One of the topics on the May 26, 2017 episode was sex shops. Scenes of the inside of a sex shop were shown, and the women described their experiences with comments such as [translations] “Contrary to what you might think, in a sex shop it’s not just men in their mid-fifties with their hands down their pants in front of the salesgirl” and “The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in a sex shop is a silicone forearm! […] I like to think it’s, like, to give yourself a high-five when you’ve done something nice. But I know that that silicone forearm, it goes up your ass.”
The CBSC received a complaint from a viewer who felt that the discussions were inappropriate for broadcast before 9:00 PM, especially on a channel that the viewer said targets children. In its response, VRAK explained that after a recent makeover, its target audiences were female adolescents and young adults. It also said that it aired a viewer advisory and a 13+ icon, but, was unable to provide the CBSC with an official logger of the broadcast which would have contained that information. Instead, it provided a logger of a different episode to demonstrate what usually appears during the show.
The CBSC’s French-Language Panel examined the complaint under the television scheduling provision of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics which states that sexually explicit material intended for adult audiences shall only be broadcast between 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM. The Panel concluded that VRAK did not breach that code article because the content was mild and vague rather than explicit.
The Panel also concluded that the advisories and classification that VRAK claimed to have put on the episode were adequate, but emphasized that VRAK should pay particular attention to these viewer information tools since it has shifted its target audience from children to teens and young adults without changing its brand name, and viewers may still believe that children are its target audience.
Broadcasters who participate in the CBSC are required to conserve and provide official logger copies of their programming, which contain exactly what went to air, including commercials, advisories and classification icons. The Panel found VRAK in breach for failing to provide a logger for the May 26, 2017 episode of Code F.
