They’re coming for your porn – the regulators, that is. No, I’m not talking about some group trying to ban pornography but instead broadcast bureaucrats worrying about the origins of the porn.
The CRTC, Canada’s broadcast regulator, is threatening to pull the licences of a group of porn channels for not meeting the Canadian content requirements set out in their licence agreement.
AOV Adult Movie Channel, AOV XXX Action, and AOV Maleflixx apparently don’t broadcast movies with enough brawny B.C. lumberjacks or Montreal femme fatales.
The channels, all owned by Channel Zero of Toronto, are required to broadcast 35% Canadian nudie flicks or about 8.5 hours a day. The other problem the regulator cited was a failure to provide “90% closed captioning for English-language programs.”
Apparently people with hearing problems need to see the “ooohs,” the “aaahs,” and the “yes, yes, yes” spelled out on screen, not just acted on. It’s kind of like reading Playboy for the articles.
The regulator is asking for public comment up until April 4th and will hold a hearing on the matter on April 28th. If the broadcaster fails to explain away their lack of nubile Newfoundlanders, it could be forced off the air.
If you are snickering at this, you aren’t alone. The Globe and Mail joked about Debbie Does Deep River, alluding to the famous Debbie Does Dallas movie. Yahoo News blogger Matthew Coutts suggested appropriate Canadian porn movie names like Mr. Undressup, a play on a children’s show of days gone by; The Royal Canadian Mounting Police, a play on the Mounties; and Tim’s Whore-tons, a play on Tim Hortons, the iconic Canadian coffee shop that is also the butt of jokes on the TV show How I Met Your Mother.
What this episode really shows is the absurd reach of the bureaucratic state; they now feel the need to regulate the national origin of your pornography.
Where will it end, you ask? In the progressive fantasy world, it never will. Nothing is beyond the regulators.
Brian Lilley is the host of Byline on Sun News Network and has a syndicated column. He blogs at Lilleyspad.com.
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