Discuzzting Language

I've just finished my community-minded stint for the day, sending the following email to the Scuzz TV channel. For those who don't know, Scuzz is a music channel on Sky (pretty much the best one going for its selection - no one else is playing Therapy? or The Ga Ga's, and they even play The Wildhearts).

I have a small concern to air regarding your recent playlist additions. A few days ago I saw "Paranoid" performed live by Ozzy Osbourne on Scuzz, and just now I watched "Anthem" by The Wildhearts (a most welcome sight I must say).

The problem is that both videos contained swearing, and were shown during the afternoon (i.e. before the watershed). Danny says "fucking" in the chorus of "Anthem", and Ozzy kept shouting "fuck" between verses.

Personally, I find listening to censored versions of songs a bit irritating, so certainly prefer the uncensored versions you've been playing. However, I don't think the ITC would hold the same view.

It may be that you have permission to play uncensored lyrics throughout the day, in the same way that Sky Movies can show 15 certificate films from 8pm onwards, though if this is true I'm surprised that there isn't some mention of this to let parents know what channels to let their kids roam free through.

What I think is more likely is that you have added these videos to your playlist and not thought to check their content first ("Paranoid" would certainly pass normally, and I've seen VH1 play a live version recently that was clean, so I'd understand if your version was assumed to be clean).

The point of this email is simply to alert you to the fact that these uncensored videos are being shown during the day, and that you should try to avoid this in the future - it would be a great shame for your channel to be terminated because of angry letters to the ITC from concerned viewers.

Thanks for your time, and keep up the good work.

It might not come across from that very well, but I'm only concerned about the channel potentially being axed, and not about the vile language being aimed at the kids of Britain. Nothing is going to shield kids from bad language, and I don't see any need for keeping it from them. I've just remembered hearing people say that as kids they listened to Guns N' Roses or Cypress Hill because they swore a lot, and you can imagine a lot of today's youth doing the same with Eminem due to the amount of censorship in his videos. That's not the way I've ever chosen a particular band for attention, but I guess whatever makes you happy and all that.