A promotional trailer for a TV3 programme which showed male and female nudity and scenes of a sexual nature has been judged "too sexually explicit" by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC).
The promotional trailer for TV3's Californicationaccounted for two of the four complaints upheld by the commission in its list of most recent judgments published yesterday.
Californicationwas shown on TV3 at 10pm; however, the complaints related to extracts promoting it aired at 9.25pm and 4.30pm, showing a man spanking a woman as she bends over in an office, and a woman taking off her underwear as she kisses a man.
One complainant said that while viewers could choose whether to watch the show, they were not forewarned about the trailer, which was "very distasteful and inappropriate". Another complainant said her children saw the trailer at 4.30pm and asked "why the lady's pants were falling down". The trailer had crossed into "soft porn".
TV3 said the 4.30pm airing had been an error, but it felt it was appropriate to show the trailer at 9.25pm, after the watershed. However, the BCC upheld the complaints and said the extracts were "too sexually explicit and the nudity, which was also totally sexual in nature, was not appropriate" given that the viewer was not forewarned of the content.
