UBI: Complaint against horror film report partially upheld
According to the UBI, a report by the French-Swiss television station TSR on «gore» films—a particularly bloodthirsty subgenre of horror—violated regulations on the protection of minors. The programming regulators partially upheld a complaint.
Last July 6, at 7.30 p.m., the main edition of the Tagesschau on French-speaking Swiss television reported on the International Festival of Fantastic Film in Neuchâtel. The report focused on the "gore" genre of horror films, with excerpts from various particularly gory works being shown.
In its deliberations on Friday, the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television (UBI) has now partially upheld a complaint lodged against this. In the opinion of the UBI, the images were likely to endanger the development of minors. According to the UBI, the decisive factor was the time of the broadcast and the fact that insufficient reference was made to the upcoming images. At the same time, the UBI stated that the reportage neither glorified nor trivialized violence. The UBI's decision can still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
French-speaking Swiss television was astonished by the ruling. TSR's chief lawyer Patrice Aubry said after the ruling that he had expected the case to be dismissed in its entirety. He could not say whether the broadcaster would lodge an appeal: "We will examine the written judgment and then decide," he told the news agency SDA.
The UBI is an extra-parliamentary commission of the Swiss Confederation. It consists of nine part-time members and is responsible for determining, in response to complaints, whether radio and television broadcasts were correct. (SDA)
