TV News

The BBC's Burmese language service is pulling a broadcasting deal with a popular Myanmar television channel citing censorship, with insiders saying the partners had clashed over coverage of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

Since April 2014, BBC Burmese broadcast a daily news programme on MNTV with 3.7 million daily viewers. Now the BBC said it was ending the deal after MNTV censored or pulled multiple programmes since March this year.

The spat seems to be that the local channel objected to the BBC's use of the word Rohingya in their reports. Myanmar's government -- and most local media -- call them Bengalis, portraying them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite many living in the country for generations.

Poland's TV censors of the National Broadcasting Council have fined a private television channel, TVN, for its coverage of opposition demonstrations in Warsaw last year. The fine amounted to about £311,000.

The council's five board members were either appointed by the Law and Justice majority in parliament or by the president, himself a former member of Law and Justice.

The council claimed the station's prominent coverage had promoted illegal activities and encouraged behaviour that threatened security.

Opponents of Poland's right-wing government have pointed out that the council's decision amounted to censorship.

The demonstrations in December 2016 were sparked by the plans of the governing party Law and Justice to limit the number of journalists and television stations allowed to cover parliamentary proceedings. The proposals were largely dropped.

The censors ruled that the coverage by TVN's 24-hour news channel broke the law because it showed opposition politicians encouraging more people to show their disapproval of the government.

TVN is a US-owned broadcaster and is often critical of the right-wing government. The channel said in a statement that it disagreed with the decision and would appeal against the regulator's decision.

It's been compared to removing Harry Potter's wand, or watching Titanic and not seeing the boat sink.

French broadcaster TF1 has angered viewers who tuned into a Sunday night screening of the 2015 film Fifty Shades of Grey by removing 15-minutes of sex scenes from it. The channel said it made the cuts in order for it to screen at 9pm.

However, some viewers thought it should have been shown in full after 10.30pm, while others thought it was tame compared to some French programming and pointed out it was only restricted to those under-12 when it was released in French cinemas.

The bizarre censorship decision may have been something to do with a recent whinge by President Macron'that French teens were being exposed to too much sex, too early.

familyfirst.org.nz whines:

A reality TV dating show with full-frontal nudity has proven to be a turn off for some Kiwi viewers.

TVNZ confirmed the broadcaster has received complaints about UK series Naked Attraction, which sees potential love interests introduced by gradually stripping bare in completely uncensored footage.

Season one of the show has joined TVNZ 2's Friday night line-up, with the first episode featuring an average of five penises and two vaginas every minute, according to the Daily Mail.

A TVNZ spokeswoman said the show was unlike anything screened on TVNZ 2 before:

We feel that Naked Attraction is revealing and made to be entertaining.

As the programme contains nudity it is screened in a 9:30pm Adults Only time slot. It carries a clear content and nudity warning before broadcast, giving viewers the choice over whether they would like [to] remain watching the programme, or prefer to watch another TVNZ channel instead.

Lobby group Family First lashed out at the show earlier this month in a public letter to the Minister of Broadcasting Clare Curran titled State broadcaster competes with porn sites for content.

National director of Family First Bob McCoskrie compared the show to porn and questioned why it was screened on a Friday night when children were likely to be watching TV.

Full frontal nudity has always been off-limits on television but it now seems that anything goes and that it is a race to the most offensive and shocking content possible. 'Broadcasting standards' is an oxymoron. 'Family viewing' should now be treated with great caution.

Family First said they had been swamped with complaints from families horrified at how the show has caused free-to-air TV standards to hit rock bottom.

The US establishment clearly cannot accept that US voters selected Donald Trump because of their own failures to look after sizable chunks of the American people. Instead they prefer to believe US minds were somehow corrupted by mysterious foreign agents offering propaganda and fake news.

So now the US is coming down heavy on the Russian propaganda news channel RT. RT said this week that it had been ordered by the US Department of Justice to register as a foreign agent by Monday or have its bank accounts frozen. This 1938 reporting law is something from the age when the Nazis were on the ascent, and that foreign agents were indeed enemies of the state with a war looming.

In response to this treatment, Russia's parliament has now begun drafting tit-for-tat measures that would place severe restrictions on some US media outlets operating in the country, in a move that looks likely to plunge US-Russia relations to a new low.

Russian president Vladimir Putin had previously warned that Russia would take retaliatory steps if RT, formerly known as Russia Today, was targeted by US authorities.

The Russian parliamentary speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, said MPs had been tasked with drafting amendments to Russia's own law on foreign agents to include biased media organisations that oppose Russia's political system. He said the amendments could be approved in their third and final reading as earlier as next Friday.

Senator Alexei Pushkov, who chairs the upper house of parliament's media policy committee, said the measures would initially target CNN, the Voice of America, and Radio Liberty. However, Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, did not rule out that the updated law could also result in the expulsion of Moscow-based correspondents from US newspapers such as the New York Times and The Washington Post.

It is now OK to say 'fuck' on French-language broadcasts in Canada, thanks to a new ruling by the country's TV censors.

The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled that the word has become such a part of French-Canadian vernacular that it's no longer too vulgar to speak on air.

The CBSC note that the English word 'fuck' does not have the same vulgar connotation when used in French, the council said in a statement. The word can be exclaimed at any time of day.

The council made the change after it received complaints about two clips aired on the French-language Canadian radio station CKOI-FM. One of the clips featured Madonna saying fuck you during the Women's March in Washington, D.C., while the other was an aired excerpt of a Green Day concert where singer Billie Joe Armstrong says, What the fuck?! I'm not fucking Justin Bieber, you motherfuckers!

There are still restrictions on the word during daytime broadcasts. The use of the word must be infrequent and the word cannot be used to insult or attack an individual or group.

Kenyan censors have banned a show on Disney channel from airing in Kenya, citing the introduction of a gay character for its second season.

The Disney Channel made history recently after it introduced a gay storyline to its popular show, Andi Mack , for its second season. In the show, 13-year-old Cyrus Goodman comes out as gay and confesses to his best friend that he has a crush on cool kid Jonah Beck.

Kenya Film Classification Board boss Ezekiel Mutua said the programme would not be allowed to air in the country. Mutua announced the sanction on his Facebook timeline, saying his organisation was unapologetic when it comes to protecting children from content that he termed inappropriate and warned that gay content would not air in Kenya.

Following the complaints and ban, Multichoice Kenya issued a statement saying it had contacted its channel provider, Disney, and confirmed that the show was not scheduled to air on DStv and GOtv.

Update: Disney decides to pull Andi Mack from all of Africa

8th November 2017

Disney have now decided to pull the show altogether across Sub-Saharan Africa, with a spokesperson saying that the show will be taken off DStv to respect cultural sensibilities.

It means Andi Mack's gay storyline won't be shown in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Mauritius and Tanzania.

A Disney Channel spokesperson told The Cape Argus:

While our shows are developed for global audiences, we are committed to respecting each market's cultural sensibilities, compliance rules and regulations.

Disney Channel in South Africa serves multiple countries across Africa and the Middle East, each with its own regulations to which we adhere.

Accordingly, Andi Mack will not be broadcast through DStv.

Hannity
Fox News, 31 January 2017, 06:15

Fox News is a news channel from the US shown on UK TV. Although the channel has ceased to broadcast and is no longer a licensed television service falling under Ofcom’s jurisdiction, Ofcom has decided that publication of this short form decision is appropriate to ensure there is a complete compliance record and to facilitate public understanding of the Code.

This case concerns “due impartiality”.

In reaching this Decision, we have taken into account the fact that Fox News is a US news channel, directed at US audiences, which is available in the UK. The people who watch it in the UK are aware that it is a US channel and their expectations are different. It is not a main source of news in the UK. However, we were also mindful that, in our view, this particular programme dealt with major matters relating to current public policy that, as well as being of international significance, were of particular relevance and significance to UK viewers.

Hannity is a current affairs discussion programme. On 31 January 2017, it covered President Donald Trump’s Executive Order issued on 27 January 2017 restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. Ofcom considered the programme under Code rules:

• 5.9 (adequate representation of alternative views in ‘personal view’ or discussion programmes),

• 5.11 (due impartiality on matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy) and

• 5.12 (inclusion of an appropriately wide range of significant views when dealing with matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy).

Ofcom considered the Order to be a “major” matter. There was intense international and UK interest in it at the time. Although a domestic US policy, its application was likely to impact non-US citizens, including in the UK. It also attracted scrutiny as an early signal of how the Trump Administration would approach domestic and international affairs. On the day before the broadcast thousands of people joined protests in several UK cities against the travel ban, MPs held an emergency debate at Westminster and more than 1.5 million people had signed a petition calling for Mr Trump’s state visit to the UK to be cancelled.

We went on to consider if due impartiality had been preserved by ensuring alternative viewpoints were sufficiently reflected. The opening monologue featured several video clips of public figures reacting critically to the Order. However, these views were briefly represented in pre-recorded videos and repeatedly dismissed or ridiculed by the presenter without sufficient opportunity for the contributors to challenge or otherwise respond to the criticism directed at them. During the rest of the programme, the presenter interviewed various guests who were all prominent supporters of the Trump administration and highly critical of those opposed to the Order. The presenter consistently voiced his enthusiastic support for the Order and the Trump Administration.

Ofcom acknowledged that viewers were likely to expect Hannity to address controversial issues from a perspective that is generally more supportive of the US Republican Party. However, the likely audience expectations did not provide sufficient contextual justification to outweigh the numerous highly critical statements made about people who had opposed the Order, coupled with the clear support being expressed for the policies of President Trump.

Breaches of Rules 5.9, 5.11 and 5.12

Ofcom cited a second example of Fox News one sided reporting, criticising Tucker Carlson Tonight for a programme about Islam, child abuse and terrorism.

Channel 4 has scrapped a planned drama based in North Korea after Kim Jong-un's regime hacked into its systems and 'scared investors into withdrawing their funding.

The ten-part thriller, Opposite Number , was to be about a mission to rescue a British nuclear scientist who had been taken prisoner in North Korea.

North Korea's most senior military body, the National Defence Commission, initially said British authorities should punish those behind the project, which they branded a slanderous farce. Shortly afterwards, security agencies discovered that hackers had breached Channel 4's systems.

They did not manage to inflict any great damage immediately, so David Abraham, Channel 4's chief executive, vowed to keep on filming, according to the New York Times. However, he was forced to backtrack when the full scale of the damage the hackers could cause became clear.

But while Channel 4 was still willing to run Opposite Number, the Sony scandal made the TV series' other financial backers nervous. International broadcasters that had promised to help pay for the project pulled out -- leaving the project short of funding. Despite the potential fallout, Channel 4 insiders said yesterday the series could still go ahead if it secured new backing.

Qatar is under the cosh in the Middle East caught in a deadly pincer movement of a Saudi led coalition of Arab countries on one side and Israel on the other. All these countries object to Qatar's funding of the Al Jazeera news channel which provides seeming well balanced reporting across the region in both Arabic and English. Its seems that Qatar's neighbours would prefer the news to be dominated by their own, not quite so balanced, news networks, that are a little bit more sycophantic to their own interests.

So perhaps it was hardly surprising that an Al Jazeera documentary investigating the Isreali Embassy in London would be reported to Ofcom for supposed bias.

The UK TV censor Ofcom investigated Al Jazeera after receiving complaints about The Lobby , a four-part documentary investigating the political influence of the Israeli embassy in Britain.

The programme showed Shai Masot, an official in the Israeli embassy in London, saying he would take down MPs including Sir Alan Duncan , the Foreign Office minister who is an outspoken supporter of a Palestinian state. The Israeli ambassador subsequently apologised for the comments and Masot resigned.

Ofcom cleared al-Jazeera after concluding it did not make allegations in the documentary that were based on the grounds of individuals being Jewish and that it had included the view of the Israeli government in the programme. It ruled that al-Jazeera had not breached rule 2.3, which relates to offensive matter, and rule 5.5 with regards to impartiality. Ofcom said:

It was the view of some complainants that The Lobby fuelled harmful stereotypes about Jewish people controlling or seeking to control powerful organisations. These complainants considered this was antisemitic and offensive.

We considered that the allegations in the programme were not made on the grounds that any of the particular individuals concerned were Jewish and noted that no claims were made relating to their faith. We did not consider that the programme portrayed any negative stereotypes of Jewish people as controlling or seeking to control the media or governments. Rather, it was our view that these individuals featured in the programme in the context of its investigation into the alleged activities of a foreign state -- the state of Israel acting through its UK embassy -- and their association with it.

An al-Jazeera source welcomed the ruling, saying:

This goes to show that no matter what al-Jazeera's critics say, its journalism meets and exceeds the highest standards of objectivity and balance. We feel vindicated by the rulings and ever more committed to exposing human rights violations by anyone -- regardless of geography, religion, or the power of their lobbies.

Moscow has warning the US that it may restrict US media in Russia. Russian officials have accused Washington of putting unwarranted pressure on the U.S. operations of Russia Today. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said Russia was within its rights to restrict operations of U.S. media outlets in the country

A foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the full weight of the U.S. authorities was being brought to bear against RT's operations in the United States, and that Moscow had the right to respond.

 She did not identify any specific U.S. media outlets that would be targeted. She said it made no difference from the Russian government's point of view if those outlets were backed by the U.S. state, or privately-funded. However late last month, Russia's state TV censor accused U.S. TV channel CNN International of violating its license to broadcast in Russia and said it had summoned the broadcaster's representatives in connection with the matter.

The ambassadors to the Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain, hardly countries that have any notion of free speech, have said that UK TV censor, Ofcom, should establish if the services breached British or European directives.

Al Jazeera is based in Doha and the four countries boycotting Qatar accuse the TV station of promoting an extremist agenda. Closing down the station and its affiliates was one of the conditions imposed by the Arab quartet leadership for lifting the boycott on Qatar.

The five point request from the ambassadors to Ofcom asked for an assessment that Al Jazeera was fit to hold a broadcasting licence when it was a platform for allegedly positive or sympathetic coverage of ISIL. This includes references to it as an organisation, rather than a terrorist group.

An Ofcom spokeswoman said it had passed this letter of complaint to the media regulator in Italy, where the [Arabic] channel holds its licence, for urgent consideration.

Indonesia's Trans TV will surely become a cropper

Indonesian lawmakers have agreed a proposed law that would ban anything gay on TV. Among the list of criteria for outlawed content in broadcasts includes programs containing LGBT behaviour.

The law would require the screening of all TV shows, films and adverts by an external censorship body prior to broadcast in order to ensure compliance with the new rules.

The ban has broad support from across the parties in the country. Supiadin Aries Saputra of the NasDem Party said:

We can't allow LGBT behaviour on TV. It is against our culture. We have to ban it early before it becomes a lifestyle. It's dangerous and can ruin the morality of the younger generation.

It is legal to be gay in Indonesia apart from  Aceh province, which implements its own nasty punishments under Islamic law.

Streaming service Netflix has pulled an episode of the cartoon series Maya the Bee after a viewer complained it contained an explicit drawing.

A screen grab of the offending scene appears to show an outline of a penis etched on a log in the background.

The 35th episode of the show's first season was pulled after US mother Chey Robinson posted a clip on Facebook,

The TV show is not available to UK Netflix subscribers

Cheeky animators have a history of sneaking in suggestive imagery into cartoons, apparently in the expectation their private jokes would remain so.

Update: Cartoon makers apologise for being dicks

25th September 2017. See article from bbc.com . Thanks to Nick.

An outline of a penis that appeared in a Maya the Bee episode was the result of a very bad joke, the makers of the children's animated series have said. Belgian company Studio 100 said the image was absolutely inappropriate and offered apologies to everybody who has been offended by it.

Studio 100 told the BBC the penis, etched on a log in the background of a scene, obviously results from a very bad joke from one of the 150 artists working on the production. This is indeed unacceptable to Studio 100 as owner of the brand and all its affiliates and doesn't reflect the quality of our work and our values, it continued. The Paris-based company said it was very sorry and that it was taking all suitable technical measures to remedy the situation.

The BBC's Burmese language service has said it was pulling a broadcasting deal with a popular Myanmar television channel citing censorship as the two partners clashed over coverage of the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

Since April 2014, BBC Burmese broadcast a daily news programme on MNTV with 3.7 million daily viewers. On Monday the BBC said it was ending the deal after MNTV pulled multiple programmes since March this year.

The BBC cannot accept interference or censorship of BBC programs by joint-venture TV broadcasters as that violates the trust between the BBC and its audience, a report on the BBC's Burmese website said.

In a statement MNTV said it began pulling reports to comply with government orders over restricted words. The BBC Burmese program sent news that included wordings that are restricted by the state government, the statement said. A station official said the problematic word was Rohingya.

Morality campaigners from Morality in Media (or the National Center on Sexual Exploitation as they like to be called now) are gushing with praise for a new cable TV programme from HBO. The campaign group writes:

HBO's television series The Deuce continues the premium cable television network's onslaught of programs that glorify and normalize harmful sexual behaviors, particularly acts of sexual exploitation that degrade women. The show's main themes -- the pornography industry and prostitution -- tee up its producers for gratuitous pornographic scenes and disturbing, graphic sexual content.

Notable incidents:

• Scene where pimps are hanging out on the street getting shoe shines; two little boys are hanging out with them looking at Playboy;
• Franco's character is walking down the street, sees a man in a phone booth getting a blow job from a prostitute, you see the man's penis in the scene;
• Graphic sex scene between a student and her professor, she's topless throughout;
• Franco's character makes the women at the restaurant he manages start wearing black leotards as their "uniform" in order to attract customers;
• A group of male teenagers come to Times Square by car to treat their friend (it's his birthday -- presumably his 18 th ) to sex. They are all pooling their funds so that he can have sex.
• In another scene, another prostitute appears to be viciously attacked. As she is unlocking the door to her room, a man follows, passes by, but then comes back as she enters the room. He grabs her head and shoves her in the room, throws her on the bed, slaps her across the face and starts undoing his pants. She's trying to kick him off. It's clear he's going to rape her. The scene ends. Later the show returns to the scene after the attack. He is sitting naked in a chair, she's on the sitting on the bed, breasts exposed. It becomes clear that the "rape" was a fetishized act that he paid for. Because he was really rough with her, he pays more. He gets up from the chair to get dressed, and his penis is clearly seen. Also full rear nudity;
• Near the end, we see Franco having sex with a woman who works with him from the restaurant. Full rear nudity of Franco. It's a very pornographic scene. When they finish you see the woman's breasts;

An Indian TV show which depicted a bizarre love story between a nine-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman has been pulled off air following criticism that it promoted child marriage and was regressive.

In a statement, Sony Entertainment Television said they were cancelling the controversial daily soap Pehredaar Piya Ki (Husband's Guard).

The show which launched in mid-July, had attracted a lot of negative attention right from the beginning for the unusual love story at its centre.

The show's troubles began when Jai Ho Foundation, a Mumbai-based non-governmental organisation, petitioned authorities, demanding an immediate ban on it, describing it as indecent and unfit for children. Jai Ho said in a complaint letter to India's Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani:

A child is seen caressing, stalking and having a relationship of a sexual nature with a lady who is more than double his age... This is an indecent and obscene representation of a child for the purpose of representing sexual relationship.

The programme also prompted a lot of social media outrage in a country where child marriage is still rampant. A petition addressed to Ms Irani on change.org gathered more than 100,000 signatures, prompting the minister to write to the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) to take prompt action against the show.

The BCCC ordered the show timings to be changed from the prime time slot of 8:30pm to 10:30pm and the show also began putting out a disclaimer saying we do not support child marriage.

National broadcaster NRK's P3 channel will be debuting a show in November aimed at giving teenagers a healthier relationship with their own bodies and sexual desires. The programme, Line fikser kroppen (Line fixes her body), will take on issues like body positivity and unrealistic expectations for sex.

P3's editorial director said the new programme will offer a counter narrative to the way sex and the female body are portrayed in porn. He said that just showing surgically-enhanced bodies and overly-choreagrophed sex creates false hopes and misperceptions. We hope that by showing sex in its entirety, rather than just merely as penetration, we can provide the target group with the right approach. This will be done in part by showing regular people having actual sex.

P3 has been reaching out to blogs and hanging posters throughout the country in an effort to recruit couples willing to have sex for the show.

Not sure if you were aware of this, but Tuesday 18th's premiere of Season 2, Episode 9 (Sic Transit Imperium) of Sky Atlantic's imported US Showtime drama BILLIONS , had a heavily censored subtitle track for Deaf/Hard of Hearing viewers added to it. Every single swear-word was edited.

Fuck became heck, frick, frig, screw, freak, crap Fucking became sucking, fricking, frigging, freaking, freaky, fracking Shit became stuff, hell, crap Pussy became punk Bullshit became bullspit Goddam became gosh-darn, full-blown (yes, really!) Motherfucker became money-grabber Fuck this became forget this

The only rude words that survived intact were crap and ass .

Whoever did that episode's subtitling clearly had an issue with all the adult language. I've never seen anything like this, since the 1980's/90's days of films on ITV (like ALIENS or DIE HARD).

Update: Freaking censors

29th April 2017. Thanks to Jon

Re the censored subtitling on Season 2, episodes 9 and 10 of BILLIONS (currently showing on Sky Atlantic).

Sky has now e-mailed Jon to say that the subtitles they broadcast, are the same ones used by Showtime in the USA.

Here's the video evidence of what the audio sounds like, and what the subtitles claim are being said. It's funny...

The Danish Girl is a 2015 UK / Germany / USA biography by Tom Hooper.
Starring Amber Heard, Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne.

The remarkable love story inspired by the lives of artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

A scheduled TV showing of Hollywood film The Danish Girl has been cancelled on the rders of the Indian film censor.

According to a source the Central Board Of Film Certification (CBFC) objected to the film due to its sensitive storyline. The movie went to CBFC for clearance three months ago and they were sitting on it. And now they have cancelled the broadcast citing that the issue is very sensitive... CBFC has put a ban across channels, and now no other channel can also show the film.

The film, which released theatrically in India last year with the film censor's blessing, but TV appears to be a small step too far.

 

Thailand, who have a repressive lese majeste law, which metes out extreme punishments for minor criticisms of royalty, has been accused of insulting Myanmar's historic royalty.

A Thai soap opera that appears to depict Burmese palace intrigue has angered some in Myanmar including a descendant of Myanmar's last king. Soe Win, the great-grandson of King Thibaw, has called for the show to be cancelled as it is insulting . He told AFP:

We have asked Thais this, would they accept it if one of our companies here did the same thing about their country.

But producers of the historical drama, called Plerng Phra Nang (A Lady's Flames) , have insisted it is purely fictional.

The lady in question is Ananthip, a character who schemes to seize control of the kingdom. Some have observed she closely resembles Hsinbyumashin, a real-life Burmese palace consort who orchestrated the massacre of scores of royals so that Thibaw could ascend the throne. Thibaw abdicated and the Burmese monarchy was abolished in 1885, when British forces defeated and invaded Burma.

A Walking Dead T-shirt has been removed for sale by the British clothing retailer Primark, after a complaint that the shirt was racist and fantastically offensive.

The shirt in question bore the image of a baseball bat and the message Eeny Meeny Miny Moe , a reference to a scene from the AMC zombie drama in which Negan is deciding who in the protagonist group to kill with his barb wire mace.

In the scene, Negan continues the phrase with, Catch a tiger by his toe .

Ian Lucraft complained to Primark saying:

We were shocked when we came face to face with a new t-shirt with a racially explicit graphic and text. It was fantastically offensive and I can only assume that no one in the process of ordering it knew what they were doing or were aware of its subliminal messages.

A Primark spokesperson grovelled an apology for the shirt, saying that any offence that the shirt caused was wholly unintentional:

The T-shirt in question is licensed merchandise for the U.S. television series, 'The Walking Dead,' and the quote and image are taken directly from the show. Any offense caused by its design was wholly unintentional and Primark sincerely apologizes for this. Primark has pulled the product from sale.

The t-shirt is widely available with several similar designs also on sale.

NatWest has reversed its decision to close the UK bank accounts of the Kremlin-backed news channel RT, formerly known as Russia Today.

The bank wrote to the company that provides RT services in the UK last October, saying it would no longer provide banking services following a review and the decision was final.

However, in a statement this week, NatWest said it had reached a resolution with RT. Natwest is part of the RBS Group which is largely owned by the British state.

NatWest has not said why it decided to close the accounts, but it is understood that the bank's compliance department has closed down the accounts of Russian customers in the past without explanation.

Moralist TV campaigners at Parents TV Council have praised a new TV comedy, The Mick . The PTC writes:

The Parents Television Council is urging its members and the public to tell Verizon to stop underwriting graphic content on Fox's new TV show, The Mick, which disturbingly features minor children using explicit language and put into sexualized situations. Ads for Verizon FiOS and Pixel were aired on The Mick.

In the show, teens are shown smoking, drinking, and swearing, as their alcoholic, drug-using aunt does nothing to set boundaries or stop them. A six- or seven-year-old boy accidentally ingests a balloon filled with drugs; a teenage girl has sex with an adult man and engages in a drinking contest with her legal guardian, among other egregious examples.

PTC President Tim Winter. said:

Verizon should refuse to be associated with such destructive and harmful TV content on 'The Mick.' Apparently the show's producers and network executives believe such disturbing content is appropriate for the public airwaves, even at times when children are likely to be watching. Verizon must choose whether it will invest its media dollars to underwrite such content. Child characters should not be used for 'shock value,' and supporting a show that makes children participants in that kind of vulgarity directly calls into question Verizon's corporate standards

The PTC recently documented that broadcast TV shows are more frequently using children to say explicit language and put them in adult situations, a trend that The Mick continues.

The Walking Dead producers toned down some of the violence in the first half of season seven after a backlash to a gruesome killing scene in the season opener.

Executive producer Gale Anne Hurd acknowledged that the negative response to the bludgeon slayings of two key characters in the premiere prompted producers to make adjustments in episodes that were still in production. She said:

We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence. We did tone it down for episodes we were still filming for later on in the season.

Hurd made it clear that the response made an impact on the production team. This is not a show that is torture porn, she said. After the response to the finale, she said they gave strong consideration to making sure we don't cross that line.

Researchers from Leicester and Birmingham City University have revealed some of the key concerns audiences have with television they find offensive .

Dr Ranjana Das from the School of Media, Communication and Sociology and Dr Anne Graefer from the Birmingham School of Media travelled to towns and villages across Britain and Germany and watched daytime TV with audiences, viewing programmes audiences themselves reported to be offensive or problematic and then conducting interviews with them.

They found that rather than being concerned with swear words, bad language or flashy lighting, audiences' greater concerns were with wider issues -- such as those around the construction of characters, the relative power and positions of the actors/creators behind characters and the absence and erasure of faces and issues. Dr Das said:

We were keen, in our fieldwork, to probe audiences' expectations of the regulatory process in the context of media content they themselves identified as problematic or outright offensive.

In analysing responses which argued for a clearer role of institutions to better serve the needs of audiences, when it came to the production and regulation of content they found problematic, we found a closer alignment with the democratic ideals behind the media's and media institutions' responsibilities.

In investigating people's expectations of actors and institutions in their responses to television content that startles, upsets or just offends them, the researchers suggest it is crucial to treat a conversation on free speech and censorship with caution. Dr Das added:

It is never just about being for one or the other -- as audiences clearly despise totalitarian censorship regimes for right reasons. But equally, they place expectations on producers and regulators to create a media sphere which is engaging, responsible and which contributes to good outcomes for citizens.

The BBC is to assemble a team to fact check and debunk 'fake' news. News chief James Harding told staff that the BBC would be weighing in on the battle over lies, distortions and exaggerations . But he didn't mention the BBFC news policy of under exaggerating political motivations when these run counter to political correctness.

The plans will see the BBC's  Reality Check series become permanent, backed by a dedicated team targeting false stories or facts being shared widely on social media.  Harding said:

The BBC can't edit the internet, but we won't stand aside either. We will fact check the most popular outliers on Facebook, Instagram and other social media.

We are working with Facebook, in particular, to see how we can be most effective. Where we see deliberately misleading stories masquerading as news, we'll publish a Reality Check that says so.

And we want Reality Check to be more than a public service, we want it to be hugely popular. We will aim to use styles and formats -- online, on TV and on radio -- that ensure the facts are more fascinating and grabby than the falsehoods.

The BBC's Reality Check team will focus on content that is clearly fabricated and attempting to mislead the public into thinking it has been produced by a reputable news organisation.

Sky have pulled the broadcast of an episode of their satirical series Urban Myths after Michael Jackson's children said they were 'sickened' and 'offended' by the portrayal of their father, played by Joseph Fiennes.

The episode is a tongue-in-cheek dramatisation of a rumoured road trip taken by Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando in 2001, after 9/11.

The casting of a white actor as Jackson had already proved contentious, prompting accusations of whitewashing, though many pointed out that the singer's skin had been considerably lighter by this point and he had undergone cosmetic surgery.

However, Jackson's children were 'enraged'. Paris- Michael said:

It angers me to see how obviously intentional it was for them to be this insulting, not just towards my father, but my godmother, Liz, as well. Where is the respect? They worked through blood, sweat and tears for ages to create such profound and remarkable legacies. Shameful portrayal.

Speaking to the Guardian this week, Ben Palmer, the series director, said people should not jump to conclusions and described Fiennes's performance of Jackson as a really sweet, nuanced, characterful performance .

A Lithuanian actress and former politician made a Nazi-like gesture on a TV show, which was subsequently taken off the air.

The actress Asta Baukute was about to win, she jumped off her seat upon recognizing a melody by Lithuanian composer Simonas Donskovas, who is of Jewish heritage. She then made the gestures and yelled Jew, Jew, Jew in Lithuanian.

Neither the show host, the contenders nor anyone in the audience objected to her gesture.

Lithuania's public television, LRT, apologized for a live show called Guess the Melody in which a popular actress made gestures representing Adolf Hitler's moustache while raising her arm in a Nazi-style salute. LRT's deputy manager, Rimvydas Paleckis, expressed shock on the channel's Facebook page, saying:

This is in no way compatible with our values. The show is closed.

The local Jewish community expressed dismay at the incident.

Fox showed a censored opening episode of season 7 of The Walking Dead at 9pm. The episode showed Negan bludgeoning two popular characters to death. Fox carried the episode uncut on its on demand service and the original was indeed quite gruesome by TV standards.

Ofcom published its complain bulletin this week and commented that the episode was investigated and found not in breach of its censorship rules.

Ofcom didn't publish further details but the story was followed up by The Sun. An Ofcom spokesperson said:

Our investigation found that Fox took appropriate steps to edit the programme for the 9pm showing.

This is a well-established series, and we believe the scenes would have been consistent with many viewers' expectations.

However, Ofcom confirmed to The Sun that Fox has been warned about how future broadcasts are presented to fans.

25,000 people have signed the following petition:

Beginning January 15, HBO plans to air in America a European TV series which will culminate with an IMPURE ATTACK on the PAPACY in one of its final episodes.

This program, The Young Pope, offends God, insults and slanders the good reputation of the Papacy, thus doing serious harm to souls, and, using the 'pontiff' in a scene of an adulterous sexual act, implies that holy priestly celibacy is too much of a struggle to maintain.

For HBO to bring this scandalous and anti-Catholic series, and especially this impure episode, to its nearly 40 million American subscribers is a great offense against God and ruinous to America's soul.

The following are two headlines about the episode:

• Actor Jude [Law] grabs Ludivine Sagnier's bare breasts as his character Pius XIII struggles with celibacy in shockingly racy scene from The Young Pope .

• LOOK away now if you're easily offended -- as Sky series The Young Pope prepares to broadcast a shocking sex scene involving the pontiff.

Actor Jude Law plays the fictional Pope Pius XIII as he gets to grips with a blonde's breast while in his holy white robes.

SIMPLY OUTRAGEOUS!