As a Canadian, I am “blessed” with the freedom to watch both Canadian and US television network broadcasts. I have noticed, for several years now, that Canadian TV stations rarely bleep out profanity ( with the exception of the term Mother Fudger) or cut out nudity. The only editing I see occurring in movies that are broadcast on Canadian TV, are because of time limitations. I always thought that TV censorship was regulated by the industry and not the government. If that is the case, why do US TV networks censor so much? Why do Canadian networks barely censor at all?
If its just a cultural difference in each country, I would think that US networks would be more willing to allow profanity and nudity (ie: First Amendment, freedom of the press, et al). We all hear and say these words everyday so why not broadcast them. They are, after all, just words.
U.S. network censorship (i.e., “standards and practices”) is driven more by viewer and advertiser perceptions than by the threat of government action. Simply put, the networks are in business to deliver audiences to advertisers. They don’t want to do anything that might cause a substantial portion of the viewship to defect, and they don’t want to do anything that puts the advertiser in an unfavorable light. This was most recently proven when Honda cancelled its sponsorship of of XFL football because they felt it was not an “appropriate” environment for their commercials.
Because network television is free (to the viewer) and universally accessible, the networks tend to be far more conservative about programming than their counterparts on cable TV. When you have to subscribe to cable and even pay an additional premium for HBO, the thinking goes, you’re much less likely to be offended by the programming they offer – otherwise you’d never have signed up in the first place. By contrast, the commercial networks play it safe – or, as a radio programmer once told me “You’ll never get hurt by a song you DON’T play.”
Just an interesting little anecdote here: when the band Radiohead came out with the video for Paranoid Android, it was censored in both the US (MTV) and Canada (MuchMusic.) IIRC, the scene in question involved a cartoon of two nude women violently amputating the arms off a man.
The Canadians censored out the violence but left the nudity in, and the Americans censored out the women’s nipples but left the violence in.
Remember, American media outlets have to appeal to a nation with a very broad range of social mores, including a small but extremely vocal minority that has very little tolerance of indiscretions such as sex and profanity. Think Utah, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Canada has its conservatives too, of course, but there’s no equivalent of the Bible Belt to appease.