Tighten TV rules on taste, says de Bres

Television programmes that cause religious offence are inadequately covered by existing broadcasting standards, the Race Relations Commissioner says.

With the airing of South Park's "Bloody Mary" episode, which upset many Christians, Muslims and others - and drew a large audience to broadcaster C4 - commissioner Joris de Bres is calling for debate.

The show on Wednesday night depicted a Virgin Mary statue bleeding on the Pope, who declared it was menstruating. It spurred Catholic groups to promote boycotts of C4, sister station TV3 and their advertisers. It also drew an audience of 220,000 - well up on South Park's 30,000 to 50,000 in recent weeks.

Responding to Mr dr Bres' suggestion, TV3 and C4 asserted that tougher rules could breach important liberties and the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) questioned whether it should advocate changes.

Mr de Bres said the Bloody Mary cartoon, about which many people had complained (although not yet formally to C4 or the authority), was "clearly offensive".

"I don't think the current broadcasting standards on which these complaints are judged sufficiently address the issue of gratuitous [offence] in terms of religion."

He would ask the BSA to lead a debate because it had the statutory power "to be proactive about something like this and not just deal with complaints".

But TV3 and C4 chief operating officer Rick Friesen said the authority's free-to-air code - which requires good taste and decency - "covers everything it needs to".

"You can't expect to get to a position in society where you can't offend. That would be incredibly bland and not productive at all."