LWT Hen Night Documentary Pulled Up For Taste And Decency

For Better, For Worse, an LWT documentary which followed a number of couples as they prepared to get married, has been pulled up by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) for breaches of taste and decency.

The programme, which was broadcast in May this year, followed a young woman as she went out on her hen night in Blackpool. The sequence included an almost-naked stripper simulating a sex-act with a balloon and also showed the woman touching the breasts of a transvestite barman. A number of viewers complained to the ITC that the scenes were too graphic to be shown at the programme’s broadcast time of 8pm.

The ITC said that whilst individually the sequences were on the very limits of what could be editorially justified, the cumulative effect of these features meant the programme should not have been scheduled so early in the evening.

Separately, a number of viewers complained about an episode of US talk programme The Jerry Springer Show. The particular episode, broadcast on ITV, featured Springer deriving humour from cultural and linguistic differences between the US and Britain. In this context, the national anthem was sung in a comic way at the end of the programme. Complainants said that this was disrespectful to the royal family and misused the UK’s flag and anthem. The ITC did not uphold these complaints.

Independent Television Commission: 0171 255 3000