Whatever happened to the 'Watershed'?

[ExiledRoyal]

Watching ITV this evening, Emmerdale was announced as 'having scenes of sexual assault'.

What are they doing? Giving families the opportunity to have meaningful discussions with their kids? The watershed used to give parents some reassurance that before 9pm what was shown would be suitable for youngsters. How do scenes of sexual assault fit into that category?

The watershed is a bit meaningless now there are eleventy billion channels and everything is available on demand. People expect to be able to watch what they want when they want it. Hardly anyone actually watches the basic scheduled channels any more, so the watershed has become obsolete.

It's not going to be graphic. Soaps have been showing this kind of stuff for years.

So should we just see it all as on a sort of sliding scale, measuring it with something else? Emmerdale is nowhere near as bad as Game of Thrones? Such arguments assume the moral acceptability of a film or show so long as it avoids sinking to the bottom of the barrel.

I don't run ITV

I'm sick of seeing that advert about erections when I'm eating my tea. Bring back the watershed please

I've been saying this since Mo hit Trevor with that iron on Eastenders twenty odd years ago.

Yes I remember when I was a child (early-mid ninties) there was a hollyhocks storyline about someone being sexually assaulted by their step father.

Eastenders had a storyline about a character (zoe slater?) Becoming a prostitute. Obviously there was the memorable Domestic Abuse storyline for Little Mo and Trevor.

It's not a new thing for Soap Operas to show this kind of content. The watershed was always about things more graphic wasn't it? Like actual swearing, gore, exposed breasts etc rather than the content of the story. If you can show it without it being graphic or having any swearing or nudity it could be shown earlier.