Two Comedy Central UK promos for Inside Amy Schumer and South Park are not giving British TV communications regulator Ofcom the giggles, both have been banned because of sexually explicit content and crude language.
The ads have been banned despite both being broadcast after the UK watershed which blocks material unsuitable for children airing before 9 pm and after 5:30 am. Both ads aired at 10pm during reruns of Friends and Two and a Half Men.
Inside Amy Schumer:
The trailer for Schumer’s TV show featured the comedian Schumer and Scrubs actor Zach Braff making sexually explicit jokes during a poker game.
In its ruling, Ofcom said: We noted that in this trailer Amy Schumer used a number of highly graphic terms to describe various sexual acts such as: “lubing up”; “blast my dirt-box with your thumb”; “lobster hand me in the twat”; “thumb-dash that mudpit”; and “shit on my tits”. We considered that these various graphic, sexual references were clearly capable of causing offence.
“We noted this trailer was broadcast at 22:00, one hour after the watershed…However, the content in this case was included within a trailer. Ofcom’s research on offensive language notes that audiences consider offensive language less acceptable if it is included in trailers. This is because audiences do not choose to watch promotions for programmes.”
South Park:
The South Park trailer is a promo for the upcoming season 19, it features a crude song referencing and showing explicit content such as the movie The Human Centipede, Santa Claus being tortured, Cartman vomiting poo and Butters surrounded by prostitutes.
The Ofcom ruled in a similar way to the Inside Amy Schumer trailer: “Audiences do not choose to watch promotions for programmes. They come across them unawares. Viewers cannot therefore make informed choices to avoid offensive material in trailers compared to pre-scheduled programmes, and consequently audiences consider that the offensive language is imposed upon them.”
Paramount UK’s response to both ads being removed was: “When it originally assessed the trailer it considered it to be suitable for post-watershed audiences. However, it also said that due to a separate Ofcom investigation into a number of Comedy Central’s pre-watershed trailers, the trailer in this case had been removed from the Comedy Central schedule as part of a wider review of the appropriateness of material in all its promotional trailers.”
