Bleep censor
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| Censorship Freedom of speech |
A bleep censor (or "bleeping") is the replacement of verbal profanity with a beep sound (usually a 
1000 Hz tone (help·info)), in television or radio. It is mainly used in the UK, the U.S., Canada, and Japan.
Contents |
[edit] History of use
Bleeping has been used for many years as a means of censoring "inappropriate" content from programs to make them suitable for 'family' or 'daytime' viewing. The bleep censor is a software module, manually operated by a broadcast technician. A bleep is sometimes accompanied by a digital blurring of the speaker's mouth or covered with a black rectangle, in cases where the censored speech may still be easily understood by lip-reading.
On closed caption subtitling, bleeped words are usually represented by the phrase "(bleep)", or sometimes asterisks (e.g. "****"), remaining faithful to the audio track.
Bleeping is normally only used in unscripted programs - documentaries, radio features, panel games etc - since scripted drama and comedy is designed to suit the time of broadcast. In the case of comedies, bleeping may be for humorous purposes. Otherwise, bleeping of these is rare.
When films are censored for daytime TV, broadcasters usually prefer not to bleep swearing, but cut the segment/sentence out, replace the speech with different words, or cover it with silence or a sound effect. (See also In film.) In the first example, the film may (unintentionally) become nonsensical or confusing if the 'bleeped' portion contains an element important to the plot.
The bleep is sometimes used to protect an individual's identity (if they didn't agree to be named on TV or radio), or where they live (as in the British hidden-camera series Trigger Happy TV, when a member of the public answers the question "Where are you going?").
Bleeping is commonly used in English- and Japanese-language broadcasting, but rarely used in some other languages, (Such as: Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Polish) displaying the varying attitudes between countries; some are more liberal towards swearing, or less inclined to use strong profanities in front of a camera in the first place, or unwilling to censor.
[edit] In film
Bleeping in the final cut of a film is extremely rare, unless it was intended by the director (as in a fantasy 1960s sitcom scene in Natural Born Killers, or for plot purposes in "Kill Bill"). "Fuck" was (intentionally) bleeped out of Talladega Nights, Ocean's Twelve, Accepted, Happy Gilmore, and during the credits of Wild Hogs.
Some Hindi-language films bleep stronger swear words to preserve a "12A" BBFC rating, as cinemagoing is regarded as a family experience by the Indian community.
[edit] Regulations
[edit] Advertising
Television and radio commercials are not allowed to use bleeps to obscure swearing under BACC/CAP guidelines. However, this does not apply to programme trailers or cinema advertisements and "fuck" is beeped out of two cinema advertisements for Johnny Vaughan's Capital FM show and the cinema advertisement for Family Guy season 5 DVD. An advert for Esure insurance released in October 2007 uses the censor bleep, as well as a black star placed over the speaker's mouth, to conceal the name of a competitor company the speaker said she used to use.
A Barnardo's ad, released in summer 2007, has two versions: one where a boy can be heard saying "fuck off" four times which is restricted to "18" rated cinema screenings, and one where a censor bleep sound obscures the profanity which is still restricted to "15" and "18" rated films. Neither is permitted on UK television.
Trailers for programs containing swearing are usually bleeped until well after the watershed, and it is very rare for any trailer to use the most severe swearwords uncensored.
[edit] United States
The Federal Communications Commission has the right to regulate indecent broadcasts. However, the FCC does not actively monitor television broadcasts for indecency violations, nor does it keep a record of television broadcasts. It relies exclusively on documented indecency complaints from television viewers.
The FCC is allowed to enforce indecency laws between the hours of 6am and 10pm local time. In addition, for network broadcasts, offensive material seen during watershed in one time zone may be subject to fines and prosecution for stations in earlier time zones -- for instance, a program with offensive content broadcast at 10PM Eastern Time may fall out of watershed at 9PM Central Time. Many stations in the past have been fined because of this detail.
Cable and satellite channels are exempt from FCC regulation, though many police themselves using the same FCC guidelines.
