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Female Porn and Sun TV
Read the article / show / issue that provoked me to write a letter and my response below that or go straight to my response
Date Posted on this Site
June 27, 2006
Publication
Sun TV
Publication Date
Week of May 29, 2006
Published Content
Canoe News or Canoe Live did a segment, several minutes long and aired during the supper hour, on female pornography. I wrote to the CRTC, which forwarded my response to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.
My Response Letter
I would like to complain about the quality of the programming on Sun TV in Toronto during the week of May 29, 2006. One evening, between 6 and 7 p.m., I was watching television with my young children. I stopped on Sun TV at the start of news segment titled "Female Porn". I quickly changed the channel, but some very suggestive content had already appeared on the screen. The segment lasted some time, because when I flipped past the channel again several minutes later, it was still on. I think this is completely unacceptable at such an early hour in the evening. Had I not been with my children, they might have watched the entire segment rather than a few seconds. No doubt many children did see this segment. It is bad enough that crude language and nudity is allowed on television, but objectionable sexual content displayed over the supper hour is borderline child abuse. No one in their right mind would condone showing pornographic film trailers to children; this is no different. It should result in censure. I look forward to your response.
Jason Gennaro
Was my response published?
No
Did I get a response?
Yes
Dear Mr. Gennaro,
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has received your correspondence concerning a Segment on “female porn”. It was forwarded to us by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Unfortunately, your email to us does not contain all the details we would need in order to formally pursue your complaint. While we note that you have mentioned a broadcaster in your complaint, you have not provided sufficiently specific information (i.e. date of broadcast) in order for the CBSC to secure a copy of the logger tape of the broadcast that concerned you. The CBSC has neither the mandate nor the resources to perform reviews of any or all of the programming provided by our over 590 member broadcasters. While the CBSC understands that you may consider an entire series of programming offensive, it would need you to identify at least one specific episode in order to launch its formal complaints review mechanism which could include the review of the logger tape of the broadcast. Please note that broadcasters are only required to hold logger tapes of their programming for a period of 28 days following the broadcast. We have nevertheless forwarded your complaint to CKXT-TV for their information.
The CBSC is a national voluntary self-regulatory organization created by Canada’s private broadcasters to deal with complaints made by viewers or listeners about programs which they have seen or heard broadcast on a member station. The CBSC administers four industry codes, namely a code of ethics, a code concerning television violence, a code concerning sex-role stereotyping and a code of journalistic ethics, which set out the guidelines for television and radio programming.
Sincerely,
John MacNab
Executive Director,
Canadian Broadcast Standards Council