Coronation Street 'too raunchy' for New Zealand children
Paul Chapman,
6 May 2011
telegraph.co.uk[/align]
Lianne Dalziel, a member of the opposition Labour Party, wants the long-running soap opera reclassified as "adults only" television viewing. Speaking to a parliamentary committee, Ms Dalziel said she was "shocked" when she recently saw an episode after years of not watching. Lamenting the comfortably reassuring days of characters such as Ena Sharples and Minnie Caldwell, she said: "The most raunchy part of it was Elsie Tanner having a divorce. But there was no question around parents being able to be sure about what their children were watching."
Ms Dalziel has called on the country's Broadcasting Standards Authority to bring forward the evening watershed time – after which programmes are deemed to be adult rather than family viewing – by an hour to 7.30pm. Coronation Street screens on free-to-air Television New Zealand's main channel at 7.30pm, and is consistently among the most popular programmes.
Ms Dalziel told fellow MPs the programme now deals with "incredibly complex issues, serious issues, that challenge some of the values parents would want to instil in their children. All of the challenges that parents have today, in terms of the values they try to raise their children by, I just wonder if they realise what their children are watching," she said.
Coronation Street episodes in New Zealand run about 16 months after they are seen in Britain. Although recent plot lines have featured a diet of lust and murder, a false accusation of sexual assault, and a woman being caught naked when a roofer climbed through her window, viewers have not yet seen even more risqué scenes of a lesbian love affair already screened in Britain.
Dominic Sheehan, chief executive of the Broadcasting Standards Authority, said time-slot rules were negotiated with broadcasters. He said he would raise Ms Dalziel's point with the broadcasters, but thought they "might have a slight issue with it".
Television New Zealand fell foul of viewers in the 1990s when it stopped showing Coronation Street altogether. The station was deluged with angry protesters who claimed the move was part of a "republican plot" by the then chief executive, an Australian, and was forced to reconsider.
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DISGUSTING!! FOAM!!!! RANT!!!!
