Sunday, November 16, 1997
By JIM SLOTEK --
Slap! Ow!
That sound you hear is the impact of bruised wrists at Q-107 and Montreal's CHOM-FM, following a decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council that Howard Stern is bad.
Specifically, in a 47-page decision handed down yesterday, the council concluded that Stern's New York-based morning show contravened "both the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Code of Ethics and the CAB Sex-Role Portrayal Code."
What does this mean? On the surface, very little. The CBSC is an organization of private broadcasters. Its members are required to broadcast prepared statements on decisions like the above, but that's as far as it goes.
Q-107 president Don Luzzi says the station will broadcast the prepared statement. "We want to take a hard look at the decision. We've been members of the CBSC since its inception and we have to give this some consideration. Beyond that, we're not prepared to comment."
The "no comment" extended to questions about the future of The Howard Stern Show on Q.
Of particular concern to the Broadcast Standards Council were Stern's remarks about the French on his first Canadian program (and subsequent remarks about Sikhs and Arabs), as well as what the council saw as Stern's "adolescent, puerile, crude attitudes toward sex and gender-related issues ...
"He frequently deals with female guests on the basis of their physical attributes rather than the skills or talents which are the reason for their common recognition. In the case of callers, he regularly avoids the subject with respect to which they have called in order to seek details of their bust size and weight."
As well, the council concluded that "Stern's comments directed at French Canadians, including the terms 'peckerheads,' 'pussy-assed jack-offs,' 'scumbags' and 'pussies', were abusively discriminatory under clause 2 of the Code of Ethics."
The council also expressed concern about the morning timeslot and the possibility of children listening in.
On the other hand, the council -- whose decision was released in response to about 1,000 written complaints -- let Howard off the hook on questions of taste ("Under the present codes, matters of taste must be left to be regulated by the marketplace") and on his statement that the French were cowards during World War II, citing "freedom of expression."
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