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BSA cracks down?

By Steven | December 20, 2010

Is the Broadcasting Standards Authority, with its new personnel, getting tougher on taste and decency issues on TV? Earlier this year, it upheld complaints against TV3 for a somewhat raunchy scene in Home & Away at 5:30pm , and TVNZ for a somewhat raunchier scene in Hung at 10:10pm. Now it’s upheld two more complaints against TV3, for a sex scene in the movie We own the night shortly after 8:30pm and for a string of graphic scenes from Outrageous Fortune in TV3 News. In the last case, TV3 was penalised $4000.

In the last seven or eight years, successful taste and decency complaints have been fairly rare. Is the newly constituted BSA taking a tougher line? The We own the night decision doesn’t seem out of line with earlier decisions (like the decision on Striptease from 1999). Perhaps the We own the night scene was even more graphic. Home & Away seems more like a departure. Is the BSA becoming more conservative? Is TV getting more sleazy? Are we become more accepting of such scenes, and is the BSA taking that into account enough? Is this just a blip in BSA decisions, as we saw in the early years of the old BSA? Or is it a blip in people’s willingness to complain?

Topics: Broadcasting Standards Authority | No Comments »

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