The Facts of the Case
The complainant association wrote to the National Chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council about the airing of the motion picture Silence of the Lambs on CITY-TV on February 19, 1995. The letter complained principally that the film depicted unacceptable violence against women and generally that "the subject matter, unspeakable horror and grotesque violence contained in Silence of the Lambs, makes it completely unsuitable for airing on a non-discretionary basis over our public airwaves."
The complainant association pointed out that the film "had [previously] been aired on Canadian pay-per-view discretionary channels" but its representative pointed out that she did not "appreciate having a movie about killing and skinning women delivered to [her] free over the public airwaves."
In the ordinary course, this complaint was forwarded by the CBSC to the broadcaster, whose Vice President of Programming responded to the complainant on March 13.
We have reviewed your letter with great interest because we share many of your concerns about violence in society and violence on television.
To put our telecast of this film in perspective, and to recap how we acted in a responsible manner, let me briefly review for you the handling of this feature film on CITY-TV.
This particular film was screened in its entirety by our Director of Programming Ellen Baine, by myself, and other senior management. In addition, on a consultative basis, our Citytv/MuchMusic Review Committee (primarily made up of non-programming women and men from the stations) was asked to comment on the film prior to telecast. We did this not for defensive reasons but to internally test our staff and management feelings about a telecast of this award-winning film. Everyone's comments were unanimous and supported a decision to air this film.
We chose to delay our normal 8 p.m. start time to a more appropriate 9 p.m. We chose to make significant edits in the film, either removing or reducing eight scenes for a total of about eight minutes. We chose to restrict any promotion of the film on air to an "after 9 p.m." timeslot. We ran special extended disclaimers at the start of the film and at each break. We kept our switchboard open to keep special track of any calls about the film. We also requested a simulcast on the film from cable companies in Southern Ontario indirectly ensuring that the CBS telecast of this film (they were playing this film on the same evening) was not seen by viewers in most of Southern Ontario. CBS let the film run almost uncut, editing only an estimated three minutes of material. Most viewers in Southern Ontario watched our more severely-edited version.
We acknowledge that this film contains potentially difficult material. We also acknowledge that it is one of the best films made in the last 10 years, having won Best Director, Best Film, Best Actor and Best Actress awards (among others) at the Oscars three years ago. This film has significant artistic merit and we make no apologies for its telecast.
We have been careful to track viewer response to this film. We have logged a total of 14 phone calls and letters. In every case viewers were upset, or extremely upset, at our "over editing" of the film. We have letters and calls using such phrases as "don't edit the movie" and "why did you ruin the show" as well as "we are sick of City's censorship". With the exception of your letter received from the CBSC, we have no recorded calls or letters complaining of our telecast of this film. We estimate total viewership of about 500,000 viewers to Citytv during this film.
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You have disagreed with us on many programming decisions in the past. I hope we have at least in part, dealt with many of your concerns.
The response was not acceptable to the complainant association, whose representative requested that the complaint be taken to the Regional Council for adjudication. In her letter of March 18, she responded to CITY-TV's Vice President of Programming.
In this province, in which CITY TV broadcasts, Silence of the Lambs was given a Restricted rating by the Ontario Film Review Board and flagged with the following warnings:
BRUTAL VIOLENCE, HORROR, MAY OFFEND SOME
In Ontario, it is an offence under The Theatres Act, punishable by a significant penalty, for theatre owners to expose people under the age of 18, to films given a Restricted rating.
It is not a defence under this law for a theatre owner to say, as CITY TV has, well gee, we put off showing this Restricted film featuring BRUTAL VIOLENCE and HORROR from 8 p.m. until 9 p.m.; we all watched it first and thought it was great; we put viewer advisories on etc., etc., etc. In this province, we do not leave adherence to the film rating system to the discretion of corporations...
The letter went on to decry the broadcast of "films with wishy-washy viewer advisories which advise viewers of 'exactly nothing'." She noted that the advisories do not state that the movies have been given a Restricted rating in Ontario and should not be viewed by people under eighteen.
