North American TV vs European TV

[squealpiggy]

OK this came about from the superbowl last night. There was a streaker at half time and the camera was steadfastly on someone else for the duration until they were removed. The commentators were going on about it saying "Hey is this part of the half time entertainment or what?" but the camera was focussed on a stern looking guy's face. Then you have the Janet Jackson incident, she shows a boob so the cameras switch to another angle. There is a boob showing for a fraction of a second but still there were apparently thousands of complaints about it and much grovelling from the Superbowl people and from MTV acknowledging that it is a family show.

Now at sporting events televised in Britain or Australia we get streakers fairly often and they never bother censoring them or trying to cover up the fact. It's kind of funny and it's not like it's going to have any effect on family values, after all it's just a naked body. It won't be the first or last that kids will see so what's the big deal?

So I guess the debate topic is this: Is North American TV more conservative and more censored that British/UK TV and why?

PS if this turns into a US bashing or UK bashing thread I will ask Dr E to delete it, because that sort of thing is boring. I want to explore the differences between the television censorship, I do not want to know which country is better. And note I said North America. This includes Canada.

[Twatybollocks]

I visit the US several times a year. They produce some of the most entertaining programs ever, a lot of which is bought by the UK networks, but their adverts are on too much and are not as entertaining as Europe's.

One of the things that is very apparrent is that nudity, sex and swearing is heavilly censored in the US on the main TV networks in comparison to the UK. The irony is, they don't sem that bothered about violence and the level of violence you see over there is about the same as you see here.

[CapitalismIsPoo]

North American television is much much more conservative (i live here, believe me lol). Its all about family values and protecting the children and whatnot, not just with that, but video games too. Its sick. Then theres the corrupt television media, which reports entertainment over real news (Etiopian Genocide, Israeli Atrocities, etc.). North American television and media makes me want to puke.

[skoo]

In football in the UK they are now not showing the footage in an attempt to prevent people from doing it for publicity.

However, I have to agree that overall our (UK) TV is less conservative / censored.

Edit: I would ramble on with more but I'm at work and should be meeting a deadline ;)

[squealpiggy]

Do you think it has anything to do with the time zones? In Britain anything that is risque is played after 9pm, but in a country with 5 timezones 9pm in New York is 4pm in LA so you could still get kids watching.

[Dr-Electro]

Actually, West coast programming is delayed so that it airs at thte same hour, rather than simultaneously. If the news comes on at 11:00 in New York, the news comes on at 11:00 in L. A. That is a three-hour delay and I hated it when I lived in California. I grew up in Texas and always had the news at 10:00 and went right to bed. (yeah, right)

The little kiddies are so sophisticated today that cencorship by the networks is moot. The censorship should be the purview of the parents. However, our Bible-pounding, anal-retentive, religious "right" would legislate everyone's morals and morality. They don't want me to be able to buy pornography or beer. They would close all forms of adult entertainment permanently. What the Hell do they think this is, the damned Dark Ages?

The censorship makes us look like a bunch of virginal freaks. We are anything but! The religious leaders, especially the televangelists, call themselves the Moral Majority when they are really a far-left lunatic fringe. Most of America believes in family values, God, going to Church and playing little league with the kids followed by a pizza party. What is wrong with any of that? Why do people like Al Sharpton, who believes we should all call him referend when we revere him nearly as highly as doggy poo, think that they own the morals of the third most populous nation on Earth? Thank God none of his Presidential campaigns will ever succeed.

After all that ranting, I will admit freely that the censorship on American television is embarrassing. It really bothers me that we can't even see an accidental bare booby on cable, let alone network broadcast. It's not that I'm a rabid tit-freak, I just don't like other people telling what choices I have to make and making other choices for me. Piss on censorship. I like European TV's fresh attitude toward humanity, human sexuality, and the human form. Ya'll come on over and fix this thang, ya hear?

[squealpiggy]

I should be over in Canada by May, I'll get started then!

[Sloth]

you guys have it all wrong... it isn't about 'save the children' or the fcc calling it morally bankrupt...

its about waiting a few years, putting it on dvd, and slaping "TOO HOT FOR TV" on it...

[squealpiggy]

Haha come on that guy who married a donkey was pretty wild even for Jerry Springer!

[sack the chimp]

skoo's got a very good point. I never saw the superbowl, but the last few times i've been watching footie and someone's got on the pitch, you dont see shit. Although it may well be a difference in motive.

I think it might be largely down to a difference in morals in general between north america and europe, similar to the way (so i've heard from people who've seen more of the US) you can buy ammo in supermarkets but have to go to a shady liquor store for beer. In europe that would be seen as daft, but it's just a different way of looking at things. If more people have guns, being pissed takes on a whole new problem.

I just hope you can still get british comedy, thats what i'd worry about. That and the obscene level of advertising.

[squealpiggy]

That's one thing I will find hard to adapt to in Canada, the whole having to go to the beer store for beer and the liquor control board of Ontario for wines etc. I guess it generates a lot of money for the government, but it's a little weird not having a booze aisle in supermarkets.

[sack the chimp]

Yeah, I can imagine. Ive been used to cheap offy chains in merseyside (booze buster/bargain booze, might be elsewhere, not here in coventry though) and 24 hr beer deliveries (again, not here, I dont think). Buying beer in sainsbury's is even a step down.

[squealpiggy]

There's a bargain booze round the corner. But the beer store is weird in Canada, mostly you go in and say what you want, the person cals into the back and the drinks come sliding out on rollers. Bizarre.

[Evilone]

America definately seems more prudish than the Uk... I've seen women breast feed their babies on the train in Britain, and nobody cares. When they need to eat, they need to eat. Apparently doing this in public in America would be pretty shocking (just what i've heard, sorry if im wrong). Would any US forumites care to tell me what they think the reaction would be?

[plattbridger]

i have to agree that a lot of their shows are good with obvious inevitable exceptions such as "the worlds funniest animals" etc but there are adverts every 7minutes or something like that i believe?

something like star trek lasts 45minutes on the BBC lol and what's this i keep hearing about dead celebrities (ie churchill) promoting goods? im presuming its just look-a-likes? :D

[sack the chimp]

dead celebrities? well, i'm from england too, but i think they take footage and dub words over the top. Possibly with computer graphics altering shape of mouth (someone from US please explain truth).

If i'm right, thats pretty sick. And I don't reckon you'd be paying royalties.

[notmarcie]

Royalties might have to be paid to the estate of the deceased.

On the matter of censorship during some research I was doing on porn (my degree was so fun, porn and swearing !) I came across a description of US attitudes to censorship of sex and violence.
"Kiss a tit and its an NC-17 , cut it off and its a PG-13"

[plattbridger]

lol well look at breastgate there are serious charges being looked at because janet jackson's bare breast was shown for milliseconds on prime time tv!

lol i've heard alsorts of horror stories about american tv but i don't know if any of them are true

[squealpiggy]

I know that MTV europe is the most heavily censored music channel on the continent. Even MTV2 which is supposed to be edgy and challenging is tame because of the amount of censorship. They will blur out someone flipping the bird, any slogan on a tshirt, people smoking, people drinking, they would not play Stan by Eminem unless it was ridiculously censored: They actually removed all references to smoking, drinking, drugs, spousal abuse, kidnapping, murder, suicide and violence. So it became a song about a man who is driving in his car.

[plattbridger]

:eek: lol what i'e heard about american tv is sounding more and more likely then! having only 5 channels i can't really comment apart from what i've heard in passing or seen on british tv but any americans on this forum seem so far to be reluctant to post!

[squealpiggy]

There was a song I saw on Much Music in Canada. It's by Benny Bennasi called Satisfaction. It's the one that goes "Kiss me... and then just touch me... so I can get my... satisfaction" in a robotic voice. The video showed some people very woodenly saying these words in an arty way. The video in Britain showed scantily clad women using powertools up to and including a jackhammer.

[sack the chimp]

Sounds like your in trouble. That video is pure class.

[Panto]

From what I've heard about American TV it is considerably more censored than British TV....although my friend went to America and saw a news report about someone in a sex video and the news report showed it (albeit with minor bluriness) and people in Britain complained that the news reporter didn't wear the right colour tie when he announced the death of the Queen Mother.


Oh, and am I right in thinking that Steve McQueen was on the advert for the Ford Puma years ago (although that might have been an American advert shown over here)

[Dr-Electro]

American TV is full of horror stories. We call them Prime Time Programming and Infomercials.

the Ford Puma ad starred Steve McQueen, who had just finished filming the all-time classic car chase in a Ford Mustang on the streets of San Francisco. The title of the movie is "Bullit" (spelled correctly) and if you have never seen it, go look for the video. Strap yourself to your chair for what was the ultimate virtual ride of its day!

(disclaimer: some of you gameheads may find it a bit tame, but it is a good movie all the same)

[Scribbly]

The janet boob thing was ridiculous.. a covered up boob for a second? Who cares? What do they think? It will affect their children? We have porn (well ok.. no porn... soft-sex something.. boob's only really..) on normal TV (no, you don't have to pay extra) at like 10.30 PM every 2 days.. we used to have a lot more but they removed some. So what I'm trying to say: what's the big deal?

American tv:
good:
current episodes such as the simpsons, southpark...
bad:
commercial every 7 minutes..

In the Netherlands it's the other way around.

[Dr-Electro]

Everybody I know says, "So who cares about that freak's naked tit at the Superbowl?" every time something comes on the tube or radio about it. The stupidity seems to be endless. All day today, every five minutes it seemed, some talking head on the air was spouting more crap about Janet's booby. It makes me want to scream!

American media is like that. A celebrity gets caught shoplifting a lipstick or paring a breast in public and the news is all about that one tiny, insignificant incident for weeks! I can't speak for European media, please add your two rupies worth on that part.

I say, "Who gives a sh** anyway?"

[squealpiggy]

Oh silly little things make disproportionately big news here as well, but the Janet Jackson boob thing was a mere blip compared to the Madonna and Britney and Christina snog thing.

It's stupid but I guess people are intertested in that dross.

[KnucklzPlugDog]

The one main difference between mass media in the US and mass media in Europe, at least as far as television is concerned, is that the broadcast networks here are owned by corporations. They are either wholly or in a large part subsidized by advertising revenue, which means other corporations get a big say in what is acceptable to broadcast and what is not. One upside to that is that we've never had to pay license fees for our TV sets; the big downside is that for the longest time we've had little or no say in what we get to watch. (The explosion of the home entertainment industry has vastly changed that in the last thirty years, though.)

"Public decency" campaigns are a longstanding US tradition, dating back at least to the late nineteenth century and such figures as Anthony Comstock and his laws (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_comstock.html). Movies weren't immune to such charms, either, as the Hayes Office opened in 1922 to regulate morality in films. Television eventually succumbed as well, with it being forbidden to show couples even in the same bed throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s. (Watch "I Love Lucy" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" reruns if you don't believe me.)

All this has had a tremendous effect on mainstream TV in the States at least - I can't speak for Canada or Mexico and points south - so that even today the intentional baring of a breast on commercial television is a seriously taboo subject.

Then again, cable television is filling that niche in nicely - if you don't want to see nudity, you don't have to pay for cable. If the Super Bowl had been a pay-per-view event, more than likely there wouldn't have been such a to-do over this whole thing in the first place.

[MrPlowHamburglr]

All I can say is that here in Canada I have never flipped on the TV in the afternoon to see "Euro-Trash", unlike during my trip to the UK.

[Sloth]

is it still called Much Music in Canada? I have that channel on digital cable and its name was changed to Fuse... I was upset, ofcourse, Much Music is horrible and i though i was getting a new channel...

as far as the Janet boob thing... i stop hearing about it 3 days later... now pop quiz... Who won the Super Bowl?

network tele still sucks... my tv only has three channels... Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, and CNN...

[squealpiggy]

Much Music is still Much Music.

[Playbus]

I've got a US NTSC TV/video as well as my good ole british one. My wife's family send her tapes of her favourite programmes from American TV so she can watch them. Often they have American adverts on and, while I'm not saying the standard of TV adverts in the UK is particularly high, the American ones are so awful.....so patronising.....just plain cheesey. And they have adverts much more often! They'll play the intro sequence to a show, and then have some adverts! That never happens on UK terrestrial TV.

[flapjackboy]

That's true, it wouldn't happen on UK terrestrial TV, but satellite & cable are a completely different kettle of fish...

[squealpiggy]

Originally posted by Playbus
I've got a US NTSC TV/video as well as my good ole british one. My wife's family send her tapes of her favourite programmes from American TV so she can watch them. Often they have American adverts on and, while I'm not saying the standard of TV adverts in the UK is particularly high, the American ones are so awful.....so patronising.....just plain cheesey. And they have adverts much more often! They'll play the intro sequence to a show, and then have some adverts! That never happens on UK terrestrial TV.

I have to agree, and the stuff they advertise is ridiculous! "Cytocatin is a drug that can help with your heart disease, ask your doctor for a prescription TODAY!". Wha!?

As for the advertising on cable channels, while breaks are longer than on terrestrial TV they aren't as numerous as on N American TV, where ads are shown after every title sequence. A half hour programme manages to fit in 4 ad breaks, one after the titles, one a third in, another one another third in and one after the end credits. Then there is another ad break before the next title sequence.

[plattbridger]

I have watched entire films without ad breaks on terestrial (non-BBC) TV

Infact I taped all of Monty Pythons And Now For Something Completely Different off Ch5 without any ads in it!