A joke about Barack Obama being assassinated and other controversial humour from a satirical television show has landed the French-language CBC a scolding from the national broadcast regulator.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission declared in a ruling Monday that Radio-Canada breached a number of licence conditions last year during its annual satirical New Year’s Eve show, Bye Bye.
It has ordered the public broadcaster to apologize to its viewers for segments which featured cracks about blacks, anglophones, spousal abuse, and the U.S. president.
The national regulator said it received more than 250 complaints about the show.
In one of the more outrageous sketches, a comedian suggested during an interview that Obama would be easy to kill because the first black president would stand out against the White House.
The network was also told to ensure its 2009 show respects Canadian broadcast standards.
“Television has a significant impact on the way Canadians perceive themselves and others,” CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said in the ruling.
“Broadcasters must maintain high standards at all times and are responsible for the content they broadcast, including during live programs. We expect the CBC to apologize to its viewers and implement mechanisms to prevent such an unfortunate situation from occurring again in the future.”
Radio-Canada spokesman Marc Pichette offered a succinct response: “We’re taking note of the CRTC decision.”
Monday’s decision declared that “numerous comedy sketches, including the Obama skit, contained negative comments about, and negative representations of, black people.” In several sketches, blacks were portrayed as thieves or lower-class workers, the decision noted.
Pichette said internal discussions have been going on at Radio-Canada about how the 2009 show should be vetted.
The Bye-Bye programs have been around since 1968 and the broadcast, with its eyebrow-raising style of writing that aims to shock as much as amuse, is a staple of New Year’s Eve activities in Quebec households.
