‘C’ for Classification
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Channel Nine told a Senate inquiry it has now banned the “C” word from all programs.
The Senate inquiry was triggered by the popularity and colourful language on Kitchen Nightmares. With some media analysis of the shifting landscape, CEO David Gyngell had acknowledged that while the term fell within classification rulings it was probably out of line.
The Age claims that a Senate report to be released today will reject the notion that some profanities should be decreed unacceptable. It is expected to point out that “community standards evolve, and to codify them would be exceptionally difficult.”
The report is also likely to recommend that stations show the classification logo next to the watermark during programs.
The Australian Family Association said offensive language was “increasingly incompatible with respect for women and girls and incompatible with healthy psychosexual development in children or young teenagers”.
The Senate committee could recommend that classification codes be clarified, to enable viewers to more accurately assess the content of programs. It could also call for greater definition of terms such as “appropriate context”.
And it is expected to call for a more robust complaints procedure. The commercial networks currently insist on written complaints and will not investigate email or phone gripes.
Source: The Age
13 Responses
Do you know what p**es me off about the AFA and other religious groups? No matter when TV networks schedule programs, they will take a swipe at the networks showing it, even if these programs are shown late at night. Californication and The L Word were rated MA and both were shown at the adult times of 21:30 and 22:30 respectively, but this doesn’t seem to be good enough for these groups. Seven even screened The L Word at 00:30 to avoid being whinged about.
We later find out that Seven and Ten pulled these programs off air, never to be shown again, simply because they are too scared of religious groups.
A permanent rating-logo watermark stain will only please the religious loonies. It’ll annoy the hell out of everyone else, and as I said above, every decent digital TV receiver ALREADY has a parental lock0out system in place. I know that each of the four digital TV receivers I have can do exactly that at any time (you can tell the box/TV to not display any show where the rating is, say, “M” or higher, and it literally will not display the show).
Interesting to note that the Herald Sun’s readers – the “target market” for the religious nutters and moral crusaders – have universally rejected this whole thing in their comments underneath the paper’s story about it. Nobody is offended by Ramsay’s language except, it seems, the ever-tedious and desperately irrelevant Australian Family Association, who I’m sure would much prefer it is we went back to the “good old days”.
While I was touring Europe in 2006, I had the pleasure of watching TV in both Hungary and Slovakia. TV networks in these countries already have their own TV classification along with their watermark on screen.
If that happens here, people will barely notice it if it is opaque, not in full-blown color.
Tane, I wasn’t “boasting”. It was a humorous comment. Surely even the program-shufflers at Nine already are well aware that informed TV fans are already downloading en masse the programs that Nine won’t show or delays inexorably (ER, anyone? Without “illegal” downloading, fans of that show would now be a season and a half behind!)
If Nine puts it on locally in a timely fashion – and doesn’t censor it (looking at Ramsay here, which has been brutally censored since it hit the 8.30pm slot – and Knox, this WOULD have affected at least two of Ramsay’s US “Nightmares” episodes) – then I’d rather watch it on Nine. Better picture quality, full HD on shows that were made that way, and less hassle for me.
Yep the censoring on TV is becoming ridiculous what next censoring every time bugger is said on TV what ever happened to parents controlling what there kids watch
neonkitten, why do you bother watching anything on channel nine when it seems from the boasting you do here, you download everything that is shown on that channel?
What do you get out of boasting about your downloading? Cheap Thrills???
In complete agreement with everyone here. They have no problem with kids watching murders,car crashes and wars on the nightly horror movie known as the news but lord can’t have the kiddies hearing a word they’ve probably heard a zillion times! Should be called the Australian Ignorance Association.
Luckily this will have no effect on Ramsay:)
I love swearing lol, If Dave allowed it hear my posts would be a bunch profanities with a few words in between lol.
But the C word I barely use, my GF cant stand the word and most girls I know despise it, and fair enough to.
If you want swearing in a pic, go and get Goodfellas or something, its not censorship, its just bleeping a word that offends a lot of people.
I don’t think anyone will miss, and if swearing defines how progressive a TV station is, then they ain’t doing there jobs properly.
Hi David,
It’s hard to believe the country is actually going backwards on this issue (and its ilk). I remember when the national broadsheet was prepared to print the c word, and indeed one of its columnists (Emma Tom) mounted a spirited defence of its use, as the name for “one of her favourite bits”.
Does anyone not believe that if children haven’t heard ‘bad language’ before they go to school, they will have heard everything by the end of recess on the first day?
I wonder when we’ll have a senate inquiry into extremist religious groups like the Australian Family Association that demonstrates such contempt for non-christians, gays and lesbians, environmentalists, scientists and single mothers.
Sadly the news has no problem giving these nuts airtime. 🙁
Are they recommending that the classification should be shown next to the watermark during the whole program? Viewers won’t like that sort of visual pollution.
Aaaand back to the 1950s we go again. I can hardly believe now that only a few short years ago I thought Australian TV had matured to the point where this sort of thing was a non-issue, where what your parents used to call “naughty” or “dirty” words were not automatically taboo because of the order of syllables that they contained.
So Nine is going to do a blanket ban on the “C word”? Thhe heading of this post, in that case, is wrong – it’s not classification. It’s censorship.
And yes, yes, as usual I wait expectantly for the usual conservatives to call my morals into question for “wanting to hear the c word”. Don’t bother kids, you’ve already missed the point before you’ve typed the first word 🙂
That Australian Family Association, as usual, is a Comedy Quote Generating Machine. “Incompatible with healthy psychosexual development”? Translation: “hurts our recruiting program”.
As for the Senate report that says it is “likely to recommend that stations show the classification logo next to the watermark during program”… well, the mind boggles.
If that actually happened, Australia would be the ONLY television market in the civilised world to mandate continuous rating watermarking throughout a show.
Leaving aside for a moment the usual complaints I have in recent times about the “nanny state” mentality that’s charging in to save people too dumbstruck to save themselves, I would presume that this permanent ratings stain would NOT be on digital channels. Why? Because all parents, sensitive people and quivering religious types need do with a digital set top box is set the maximum rating of a show they will allow the box to show, and presto, their eyes and ears will never be tempted by Satan again. It’s built in to the digital TV system. Therefore, there already IS permanent ratings advice on digital channels. Just hot the “info” button to see.
As for Nine’s new Herald-Sun-pleaser policy… well, looks like anything they show from US premium cable is now an automatic add to my download list. Though, being Nine, anything that they show from the US that I want to see already is 😉
Yes, I’m angry about all this silliness, in case you were still wondering. This is the 21st century. Though recently, you might not have noticed that.
I can’t begin to describe how delighted I am that my tax dollars are supporting such important work by our legislators. Some might think they should be dealing with issues like Aboriginal Health, the crubmling planet or our impending economic recenssion but I for one recognise that they’ve got to tackle the most important issues first.