Broadcast Standards Council issues record number of decisions in 2004-05

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) calls 2004-05 a record year for complaints, with the number of decisions issued soaring to 125. The self-regulatory body of the broadcasting industry receives roughly 2,000 complaints a year based on language, violence, sex-role portrayal and journalistic ethics. CBSC national chair Ronald Cohen says that no single issue sparked a multitude of complaints in the fiscal year running from September 1, 2004 to August 31, 2005: the increased activity was simply a result of the public being more aware of the complaints process, he says. "I think it’s the fact that the process is getting better and better known," says Cohen. "I think that members of the public are becoming more and more aware that there is a complaints’ process; there is somewhere they can go when they have a concern." Although complaints didn’t centre on one or even a few controversial issues, the council nevertheless had its hands full dealing with the sheer volume of them. "What I think is extraordinary was the amount of material that we received and then churned out. We issued a huge number of decisions compared to…the past." According to the CBSC annual report covering the last fiscal year that was released at the end of last month, the most common complaints concerned the broadcast of sexual content. The council also dealt with a number of complaints based on sexual orientation. "Since same-sex marriage was a hot political topic this past year, it was mentioned in various types of programming, including public affairs, open-line and religious programs," notes the annual report. But it adds, "In cases where individuals merely stated their objection to same-sex unions rather than uttering abusive comments against homosexuals as a group, the CBSC Secretariat found no breach of the Human Rights clause of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics and was able to issue a summary decision." Summary decisions are issued when the matter raised is one that has been addressed by the CBSC in previous decisions and an adjudicating panel has determined that the point at issue doesn’t amount to a code violation. On the other hand, complaints will be heard by a panel and a panel decision issued generally when the complaint concerns an issue that has not been addressed before by the council or when the issue has been found in the past to have breached a code. Of the record total of 125 decisions issued last year by the CBSC, 36 were panel decisions and 89 were summary decisions; by comparison, there were a total of 102 decisions of both kinds the year before. Twenty-five of the panel decisions released in 2004-05 concerned television broadcasts, compared to 22 the prior fiscal year. "They treated issues such as the appropriate presentation of news; scheduling of coarse language, sexual scenes and violence; sanctioning violence; as well as discriminatory remarks in news broadcasts and religious programming," notes the annual report. In 2004-05, the split between television and radio programming complaints was 75%-25%. In television, the leading areas of complaints were news and public affairs (25%), and in, radio, open line or other forms of "informal discourse" (69%). Cohen says that the CBSC has managed to get the average response time to complaints down to a decision being released within six months. He adds that one goal of the council is to further accelerate the process this coming year, perhaps cutting down the time for a decision to be released to about five months.

Broadcast Standards Council issues record number of decisions in 2004-05

Broadcast | January 12, 2006

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