I get some of it from context: that “post-watershed” means content is less limited (especially sex, violence, adult/complicated situations, etc)… but what IS “watershed” itself, really? Was it a legislated change or a policy that got overturned or something?
As I understand it, the watershed is the prescribed time itself, before which only kid-friendly content may be shown and after which (almost) anything goes. I think the usual watershed is 9 PM, hence post-watershed means after 9 PM.
America has the same concept. 10pm-6am is the “safe harbor”, where the indecency and profanity rules for broadcast television and radio don’t apply.
However, commercial TV and radio in the US self censor during these hours, so you won’t see nudity or strong profanity during that time either. (I was stunned to see unedited nudity on late night on the CBC, which is of course broadcast TV in Canada.) Noncommercial stations tend to be much looser on censorship in these hours.
This question has come up a few times. I looked up “watershed” on dictionary.com and it does indeed say “Chiefly British. the ridge or crest line dividing two drainage areas; water parting; divide”. So perhaps the word itself is not too familiar to Americans?
Anyway, as Terminus Est says, the divide is between the time periods, not a change from some old rules to new ones. These things are governed by Ofcom (Office of Communications, like the FCC) for commercial TV, or the organisation’s own governors in the case of the BBC.
Pre-watershed = Oh Darn!
Post Watershed = Oh Fuck!
IIRC the watershed is ~21:00
Ofcom is the regulatory body that can uphold complaints. It is Ofcom that will impose rulings in the case of a violation of the watershed.
Here is Ofcom’s official explanation of the watershed.
A watershed event is a major split. The 20th century was the watershed year for space exploration. It wouldn’t be used for something that occurs every day.
Now that you mention it, that’s how we use “watershed” too. The TV context is the only one in which it refers to a routine transition between two situations.
Another Brit here. In practice the difference between pre and post watershed programmes is that before 9pm parents can have an expectation that their kids can be watching telly on their own and not encounter anything unsuitable or shocking whereas after 9pm it’s the parents’ responsibility to ensure that kids don’t see anything they shouldn’t.
British telly being what it is between 7 and 9pm swearing, implied sex and “mild” violence can still be seen, there’s a sort of gradual lessening of restraint. To give some examples: Dr Who is prewatershed, Torchwood is post-. Buffy was censored when shown prewatershed but not for the showing at 11pm. CSI is post watershed, the major soaps are pre-. Sometimes there’s a special warning for things shown immediately after the watershed to the effect that “this programme contains sex, violence or swearing ***from the outset ***” as people were complaining they hadn’t switched over quickly enough to avoid something nasty . Always makes you smile when settling down to watch something like the Sopranos.
But a real watershed, as opposed to a metaphorical one, might only be a few yards across. Even in North America, there isn’t just one watershed dividing the rivers that go into the Atlantic from those that go into the Pacific; there are countless small ones that divide the basins of streams and tributaries. Any small hill can be watershed if it has streams coming off it that don’t meet up before they get to the sea. Therefore I don’t see anything wrong with using the term in this way.
This phrase always raises a cheer in my household.
But it’s always a little disappointing when it turns out to be just swearing or violence.
The geographical term “watershed” seems often to have a different meaning in the US. I see it used a lot to refer to the whole drainage basin of a river (e.g. the Mississippi watershed) rather than to the dividing line between drainage basins.
The problem with the national TV networks is that they use an “east coast/west coast” schedule. For instance, the show NYPD Blue got in trouble with the FCC once for one of their episodes. The content was fine on the east coast, where the show started at 10 pm. But the problem was, the same episode aired at 9 pm in the Central time zone, which was before the safe harbor.