Later Watershed

The petition is entitled Censor all television programmes from showing any form of violent or sexual content before 10pm and the explanatory notes say

"It is our view that many of the problems faced by our society stem from the content in television broadcasting before 10.00pm. Television broadcasters are continually increasing the violent and sexual content of programmes shown before young children go to sleep. Children increasingly have a television in their bedroom and therefore it is difficult for parents to control what they watch. Is it not time to put our children first and allow them to enjoy the innocence of childhhod for the sake of all our futures?"

While I disagree heartily with this petition for reasons I am about to expound, I must say I admire the petitioner for his honest and straightforward use of the term "censor".

However. Let us take the rest of his petition a sentence at a time. I suppose I shouldn't argue with the first sentence: "it is our view", well, OK, I disagree, and know of no evidence to back up your view.

I suppose I shouldn't really argue with the second sentence either: I last watched TV more than a year ago, so I don't really have a lot to go on with regard to increasing sexual and violent content. Maybe that's true. (Certainly when I'm in bars which have TVs on I find myself shocked by violent scenes, particularly. The hanging in Braveheart was nauseating me last week, but since that was 1995 it can hardly be evidence of increasing violence now. And a few times Sharpe has appalled me. No idea whether those have been new or old episodes, though.) So: perhaps violent and sexual content of TV is increasing "before young children go to sleep". In my experience young children's sleeping hours are ... unpredictable, depending on the child. But I suppose it's fair enough to assume that they'll be asleep by some time or another.

The third sentence, however ... "Children increasingly have a television in their bedroom and therefore it is difficult for parents to control what they watch." If parents wish to control what their children watch, they should not be putting a TV in the children's rooms. The parent who allows a child to have a TV in its room either trusts the child to be responsible in what it watches, or isn't themselves going to be responsible enough to enforce sensible sleeping hours. So a watershed isn't going to help. In my opinion.

The final sentence is meaningless.