OTTAWA – A program that contained sex toys and profanity should have contained viewer advisories, but the content was not so adult as to require a late evening broadcast, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled.
The CBSC investigated a broadcast of CTRL, a MusiquePlus program on which three young adult hosts present video clips from YouTube or other media-sharing websites and then make humorous commentaries about them. A viewer complained about an episode that aired on November 11, 2015 from noon to 1:00 PM that contained material she deemed inappropriate for children.
The clip that concerned the complainant was a type of rally where people were wielding dildos, waving or throwing them in the air and hitting each other with them, plus a quick shot of a woman sucking one. There were also two instances of the English f-word. MusiquePlus rated the episode 13+, but did not provide any viewer advisories. The complainant expressed her concern that her children had been exposed to sexual material, and that the rating given by her cable provider was 8+.
The CBSC French-Language Panel examined the complaint under the relevant provisions of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics and Violence Code regarding scheduling, advisories and classification. The Panel concluded that the program did not show any actual explicit sexual acts, so it could be broadcast at 1:00 PM, but should have included viewer advisories.
It also found that the English-language f-word is not as problematic in a French-language program as it might be in an English one. It agreed that 13+ was the correct rating, but found that MusiquePlus should have displayed the icon for at least 15 seconds as required by the CAB Violence Code, and that the icon should have appeared earlier than 32 seconds into the broadcast. The Panel also noted that this genre of program is not exempt from classification.
The CBSC had no explanation for the cable provider’s misclassification, as its jurisdiction is limited to the broadcasters.
