Rules and Regulations

Whilst it may seem that in recent times artists have gone haywire with raunchy videos, luckily there are always the men behind the red tape, Ofcom. The Office of Communications are a government approved regulatory authority  whose job it is to 'ensure that under-eighteens are protected' by enforcing 'generally  accepted standards so as to provide adequate protection for members of the public from the inclusion of offensive and/or harmful material'.

In order to do this, the following four points must be taken into account;

• the nature of the content
• the likely number and age range of children watching
• the start and finish time of the programme
• the likely expectations of the audience for a particular channel or station at a particular time and on a particular day.

Whilst Ofcom's primary purpose is to monitor explicit content, they also recognise that 'music videos are an artistic and creative medium, which can and do sometimes contain challenging content which some may find offensive'. In order to monitor the extent to which a music video may surpass the borders of artistic, they state that within a  video -

• Breasts, genital area and buttocks must be covered
• Any violence and sexualisation must be limited, but not prohibited

These may be relatively relaxed guidelines considering which videos are allowed to be shown on everyday, however many artists have found themselves breaking the rules, some on a regular basis.
This is particularly true for Rihanna and 50 Cent.
Rihanna not only caused a stir after her X Factor performance on ITV (which generated 4500 complaints), but also with her controversial video for 'Man Down' which shows her shooting a man that has sexually assaulted her.
50 Cent has also racked up the offences with videos shown on Greatest Hits such as 'P.I.M.P', 'I Like The Way She Do It' and 'If I Can't', all of which contained sexual content breaching Ofcom's guidelines.