Channel 5 has been cleared by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) of breaching taste and decency rules with its Naked Season programming, which included a game show hosted by Keith Chegwin, where all participants and the host appeared naked throughout (see Feature: Channel Five Stirs Up A Storm With Naked Programming).
Two programmes from the season were brought before the ITC. The first was Stark Naked, a documentary series about naturism, which featured, unsurprisingly, naturists. The programmes went out at 8.30pm and attracted 7 viewer complaints for the first instalment, 5 for the second and 6 for the third. Viewers felt that nudity was disallowed and/or inappropriate before the 9 o’clock watershed.
In fact, there is no such prohibition in the ITC Programme Code on nudity being shown before 9pm, as long as it is “defensible in context”. The ITC did not uphold the complaints, as it felt that viewers were advised of the nature of the material beforehand. It also pointed out that “A number of television travel programmes broadcast before 9pm have visited nature resorts, so Channel 5 is not breaking new ground.”
A further 13 viewers felt that the ITC’s Programme Code on taste and decency was breached by Naked Jungle, the aforementioned naked game show. The show, which went out at 10.55pm, was meant to celebrate British Naturism Day. Channel 5 argued that it was trying to break with traditional, “Victorian” attitudes to public nudity, said that the humour made the programme “sexless” and denied that the it sought to trivialise or extract amusement from the nakedness of the contestants.
Once again, the complaint was not upheld as the contents were thought to be clearly signposted and the broadcasting time, well after the watershed, meant no part of the Programme Code was contravened. However, the ITC did rap Channel 5’s knuckles for producing a programme which “left some viewers with the impression that it was taking a somewhat juvenile attitude towards nudity.”
Channel 5: 020 7550 5555 ITC: 020 7255 3000
