> MediaCorp fined for airing gay scenes

BROADCASTER MediaCorp TV has been fined $15,000 by the Media Development Authority (MDA) for airing a show featuring a gay couple and their adopted baby.

The MDA said yesterday that an episode of acquired home and decor series Find And Design ‘normalises and promotes a gay lifestyle’.

In the episode, which was shown on Channel 5 at 7.30am on Jan 13, a Sunday, the host helped a gay couple decorate a nursery. The MDA objected to scenes of the couple and their baby as well as the host’s acknowledgement of them as a family.

It said the broadcaster breached the Free-to-Air TV Programme Code, ‘which disallows programmes that promote, justify or glamorise gay lifestyles’.

The Programme Advisory Committee for English Programmes frowned on the episode’s depiction of the relationship as an acceptable family unit, and of its airing during family viewing hours.

Mr Kenneth Liang, executive vice-president of programming and production for Channel 5, said: ‘In this case, we overstepped the line.

‘We understand the OB (out-of-bounds) markers in this area more clearly now and this won’t happen again.’

This is MediaCorp TV’s second breach of the code. In 2002, it was fined $10,000 for airing footage from a sex video of Taiwanese legislator Chu Mei-Feng on Channel 8’s News 8 at 10.

[via ST]