(05-06-2013 01:08 )eccles Wrote: ...
Having said that mainstream broadcasters probably have a get out somewhere else in their rule book about being able to broadcast sexually explicit material when justified for documentary or educational purposes.
...
From the document fedup1 posted (which was prepared by Ch4 and 5 in 2008, before Desmond took over 5) :
before the watershed :
Quote:Visual and verbal references to sex and matters related to sex should be editorially justified and appropriately limited and inexplicit.
Quote:Representations of sexual intercourse must not be shown unless there is "...a serious educational purpose".
Quote:The inclusion of nudity and all references to sexual acts, verbal and visual, must be justifiable by context.
and after the watershed :
Quote:The inclusion of nudity and all references to sexual acts, verbal and visual, must be justifiable by context.
Quote:After the watershed, it may be possible to justify the broadcast of explicit nudity and scenes of an explicit sexual nature,
So yes, there is a get out where harder, or explicit content can be shown in an educational way, or within context, hence the graphic stuff shown on the likes of Embarrassing Bodies pre-watershed.
Interesting that the document also talks about harder content being 'phased in' after the watershed, with really explicit material being left until later in the schedules. Ofcom has applied this to the babe shows as well.
Of course the thing to bear in mind once again is that the likes of Channels 4 and 5 are governed by slightly different rules to the babeshows because of their classification as 'shopping channels', so while it is interesting to read these rules, you can't make a direct comparison, and ultimately, these are just a guideline, and a guideline from 5 years ago, Ofcom can still move the goalposts whenever it chooses.
EDIT : One other thing about the watershed that is often overlooked, but gets explicit mention in the document, the birth of the +1 channels means that the watershed doesn't really end at 5.30 for those channels, it ends at 4.30 because the +1 channel will still be broadcasting after the watershed, so all content must be scaled back an hour earlier to account for that.