ITC Upholds Complaints About Jerry Springer

The Independent Television Commission (ITC) has upheld complaints about an episode of Jerry Springer UK. The 53 complainants were offended by the episode, entitled “Sexy Secrets”, which was broadcast at 8pm when large numbers of children were expected to be watching.

Anglia, which broadcast the show, claimed that the subject matter was well within children’s terms of references, but the ITC disagreed. The programme was suitable for broadcast at its usual 1:25pm time when a mostly adult audience tunes in, but not when largely family audiences would be viewing.

An episode of Roseanne was also found to be in breach of the ITC Programme Code. On 8 September, an edition of the show gave viewers the opportunity to put questions via the internet to the presenter.

At the times in the show when messages for Roseanne were being taken, Yahoo!, the internet service provider, was given an on screen credit and the people who took questions for her wore clothing with the Yahoo! logo on. The ITC said that the prominence of the Yahoo! logo did not have an editorial justification and took action with the broadcaster, Channel 5.

Independent Television Commission: 0171 306 7743