I’m not sure if use of the term watershed is restricted to English or if it is used in American-English as well so I will start by explaining that the watershed is the time of night after which the swearing rules are relaxed on television. In the U.K. I believe the watershed starts at 9 p.m. but my question is, when does it end? I’m not just thinking about the U.K. so please reply if you know when it ends in other countries. I remember seeing some pretty racy stuff on at about 4 a.m. but cartoons seem to start at around 6 a.m. so I would guess the bounday lies somewhere between those two times.
The only american channel I know of to even promote (and therefore make use of) such a time period is Comedy Central… the “Secret Stash”. They run movies uncut, unbleeped, unedited. They only air Secret Stash after midnight on friday (saturday morning).
Back before Tech Tv was bought out by G4, they made a reference that US networks can use choice words after midnight. The host of a talk show (Martin Sargent for Unscrewed) is overjoyed and freaks out. He has to be reminded that his show goes off at 11:59 pm.
So I think there are relaxed rules for Cable channels, after hours, but most stations dont go in for it. Your lucky not to get a 30 minute Commercial/Infomercial.
I would bet such a time in the US ends before 5 or 6 am.
Wow! This reminded me of something I’d forgotten years ago. A local TV station used to run uncensored movies from 1 to 3am… so maybe 3am is it.
Ah, what a treasure it was to find that as a teenage boy.