Broadcasting Act 1990
The ITC’s power to regulate bad language is contained in Section 6(1)(a) which requires the ITC to ensure that licensed services do not offend “against good taste or decency” or to “be offensive to public feeling”.
The ITC Code
The ITC programme code (Section 1.5) on language gives clear guidance to its licensees. The code notes that many people are offended by bad language, including expletives with a religious association. Bad language can of course be justified in an appropriate context but nothing unsuitable for children may be included before 9pm and the most offensive language must never be used before that time. Even after the watershed, such language may only be included with care, bearing in mind there must be a gradual progression to more adult content.
Research
Annual survey. The ITC’s annual survey Television: the public’s view has asked viewers a series of ‘core’ questions since 1970. These include the question of whether viewers have been offended and, if so, by what. Although a majority of viewers have not been offended by anything, those who have been offended always cite ‘bad language’ above violence or sex as a reason for offence. This minority of viewers has steadily risen since 2000.
Perception of increase in bad language in programmes (%)
(All TV Viewers)
2000 2001 2003
18 19 24
[Source Television: The Public’s View. ITC]
The level of offence for cable and satellite viewers is lower. Levels of offence on bad language are strongly and consistently related to age and sex. Women are more likely than men to report offence, as are older (i.e. 65+) viewers than younger ones. Christians, also, may find deeply offensive ‘religious’ expletives which barely affect the majority of viewers at all. Research reported in Delete Expletives? indicates that terms of racist abuse are now considered significantly more offensive than in the past.
Complaints
The ITC publishes statistics on programme complaints in its monthly ITC programme and interventions report. In 2002, ‘language’ accounted for 295 out of a total of 4,054 complaints about television programmes from viewers. Comparable figures for 2000 were 186 complaints about language out of a total of 3,912. In 2002, The number of bad language issues rose. There were five instances of its use in live programmes before the watershed. The Family Viewing Policy in the ITC Programme Code forbids the use of the strongest language before the 9pm. Whilst appreciating the difficulties of live broadcasting, the ITC holds the line in recording all code breaches.
Blasphemy
Blasphemy, as distinct from offence from religious expletives or profane remarks, is potentially a criminal offence. Stephen’s Digest of the Criminal Law defines blasphemy as ‘any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible, or the formularies of the Church of England as by law established’
Although the common law offence of blasphemy (or blasphemous libel in the case of the written word) still exists in English law there have been no prosecutions by the State for over 70 years. There has, however, been one private prosecution, brought by Mary Whitehouse in 1976, with leave of a High Court Judge, for blasphemy relating to the publication of a poem about a homosexual's conversion to Christianity in Gay News in which the defendants lost.
Further References
ITC Publications
* ITC Library bibliography: Bad language and blasphemy
ITC Annual Report 2000, 2001, 2002
ITC programme code, 2002
Programme complaints and interventions report. Monthly
Television: the public’s view. ITC. Annual.
Television on trial: citizens' juries on taste and decency. ITC 1998.
External Publications
HARGRAVE, Andrea Millwood. Bad Language - what are the limits? Broadcasting Standards Commission: research monograph, 1998
HARGRAVE, Andrea Millwood. Delete Expletives? Broadcasting Standards Commission: research monograph, 2000
June 2003
|