Coronation Street usually only elicits storms of protest when its time slot is moved because of football coverage. However, during the summer, the Street managed to provoke complaints to the ITC on not one, but two occasions, with varying results.
In July and August, one viewer noted that the character of Ken Barlow was involved in a storyline in which he had a book published about the history of Weatherfield, called Weatherfield Yesterday. In the real world, Granada Media had already published a book called Weatherfield Yesterday: The Cartwright Murders, authored by “Ken Barlow” about a storyline from earlier in the year.
Granada were asked to explain the connection between the two books, as it appeared that its commercial product had been promoted within a programme. Granada replied that it thought precedents had been set for licensees to promote spin-offs from storylines, which the real-life book was. However, although this is the case, the form the product takes may not be referred to in a storyline, although it can be mentioned during end credits.
The ITC decided that it was possible that viewers could get the impression that the fictional book was linked with the one on sale, as the titles were similar and they launched at the same time, therefore the complaint was upheld.
Far more people (35) were moved to complain in the second incident, which took place in September. An episode of the soap going out on a Friday at 7.30pm showed the character Steve McDonald being lured into an underground car park where he is set upon by a criminal he has testified against, along with some ‘heavies’ with dogs.
The viewers who complained were concerned about this level of violence and menace being shown when children would be watching. The ITC described the scene as “undoubtedly menacing”, but pointed out that viewers saw very little violence, and no blows to the body. The severity of the beating was mostly conveyed using sound effects, an out of focus baseball bat, and a final shot of Steve lying battered on the ground.
The complaints were therefore not upheld as the ITC said it “Did not believe that this well-signposted scene, with little actual violence, would exceed the majority of viewer’s expectations in a drama at this time of the evening.”
ITC: 020 7255 3000
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