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In radio and television, broadcast delay refers to the practice of intentionally delaying broadcast of live material. A short delay is often used to prevent profanity or other undesirable material from making it to air, including more mundane problems such as technical malfunctions or coughing. In this instance, it is often referred to as a seven-second delay or profanity delay.

Longer delays can also be introduced, as is sometimes done with nationally-broadcast programs in countries with multiple time zones. That can sometimes be simply achieved with a video tape recorder or similar technology. In the context of modern digital video recorders, this can now be considered a class of time shifting. In this instance, it is often called a tape delay or west-coast delay in the United States, so-called because special events (including award shows) broadcast live in the rest of the US are often tape-delayed on the west coast. This includes Southern California (with the exception of the Academy Awards, which airs live in Los Angeles and the rest of the west coast), despite the fact that Southern California is where many live televised events (American Idol, Dancing With The Stars), take place.

Tape delay also refers to the process of broadcasting an event at a later scheduled time. This is because either a scheduling conflict prevents a live telecast, or a broadcaster seeks to maximize ratings by airing an event in a certain timeslot. A prominent example of the latter is coverage of the Olympic Games, when a broadcaster televises a high-profile event to air in prime time, even though that event occurs several hours earlier when most of the would-be viewers are at work. Sporting events aired on tape delay are often edited down for time considerations, highlighting the most interesting portions of the event.

Early use

The radio station WKAP in Allentown, Pennsylvania, introduced a tape delay system consisting of an external playback head, which was spaced far enough away from the record head to allow for a five-second delay. A system of rollers guided the tape over the playback head before it wound up on the take up reel. This system was introduced in 1952 when WKAP started a talk show called "Open Mic". It is believed that this was the first time a telephone call-in show was broadcast with the telephone conversation "live" on the air. The FCC rules at the time prohibited the broadcasting of a live phone conversation. However, there was no rule prohibiting a taped playback of a phone call, provided that a "beep" tone was heard by the caller every 15 seconds so that the caller knew he was being recorded. The five-second delay constituted a "taped" phone conversation, thus complying with FCC regulations. See Legal fiction.

John Nebel, who began a pioneering radio talk show in New York city in 1954, was one of the early users of a tape delay system.

Computerized delay

In 1977, the capacity of RAM (random-access memory) had reached 16kb (kilobits) per chip, enough to think about using computerized, digital audio means to create a sufficient delay for obscenity deletion. By storing audio digitally, it was possible to move a "virtual tape head" along recorded audio. Eventide, Inc. created the first digital broadcast delay for this purpose. The device (known colloquially as a "dump box") had a large "DUMP"/"DELAY DUMP" button that would bring the delay to zero, thus removing the segment with the obscenity. In addition to this convenience, it would also "rebuild" the delay time by unnoticeably lengthening the normal pauses in spoken material. Thus, a minute or so later, the broadcaster would again have full delay, with the listener often unaware that material had been deleted.

In modern systems, a profanity delay can be a software module manually operated by a broadcast technician that puts a short delay (usually between five and ten seconds) into the broadcast of live content. This gives the broadcaster time to censor the audio (and video) feed. This can be accomplished by cutting directly to a non-delayed feed, essentially jumping past the undesired moment (something that can be quite jarring to a viewer or listener). In other cases, dedicated hardware units similar to the original digital unit but with improved quality and editing capability can be used. These products can even "build up" delay with difficult program material such as music. Alternately, a silence or bleep noise can be inserted to "cover up" the audio. This is more difficult to do with live content, however, and more often appears on recorded material.

Examples

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Canada

• In 2006, CBC imposed a 7-second broadcast delay on commentator Don Cherry's Coach's Corner program. This delay was lifted after the regular season during which it was imposed.

United Kingdom

• Since 2001, Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother have been broadcast 24 hours a day on E4, with a 10-15 minute delay. Unsuitable material (swearing, nudity, potentially-libelous conversation) is cut out, or replaced by pre-recorded noise (traffic, birdsong etc) from outside.

• When BBC One broadcast the 60th BAFTA Film Awards, hosted by Jonathan Ross, on February 11, 2007, it was announced that the live coverage of the ceremony would contain a "short time delay".¹

• The 2007 BRIT Awards hosted (broadcast by ITV1 on February 14, 2007 from 8pm-10pm) were supposedly the first Brits ceremony in 18 years to be broadcast live. However, it became apparent that the show was on a delay of a few seconds, and the final musical performance by Oasis contained five-second silences whenever Liam Gallagher swore during songs.

United States

• While live censorship of audio was an issue for decades, video-censoring became an issue following the highly-publicized incident involving Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake during the live broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVIII, in which Jackson's bare breast was revealed.

• In an effort to avoid a repeat, CBS decided to use tape-delay for the 2004 Grammy Awards. In February 2004, ABC announced it would impose a video and audio delay on the 2004 Academy Awards (Oscars), to safeguard viewers from any obscenities. The 2006 Academy Awards also implemented a tape delay, and the live performance of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" was edited near the beginning of the song.

• On CBS reality shows, censorship is applied heavily to shows such as Survivor^{citation needed} and Big Brother^{citation needed}. On Survivor: All-Stars, the nudity blur over contestant Richard Hatch was made larger after the Super Bowl controversy mentioned above.^{citation needed} On both Big Brother and Survivor, swear words are muted out^{citation needed}, and their mouths are blurred^{citation needed}. When Big Brother is broadcast live, a delay is implemented to block swearing. There have been at least two occasions when the screensaver used to block the Big Brother Internet feeds has been used to cover swearing. This was used to censor Erika Landin during Big Brother: All-Stars and Dick Donato during Big Brother 8.^{citation needed}

• Chicago radio hosts "Eddie & JoBo" on CBS-owned WBBM-FM endured a 20 minute delay so every single word said could be listened to and approved by management, and lawyers before it ever goes out on the air. They are no longer subjected to this and now run on a standard 7 second delay.^{citation needed}

See also

• Bleep censor
• Federal Communications Commission
• Radio edit
• Music censorship

External links

• CNN.com: CBS to use 'enhanced' tape-delay for Grammys
• CNN.com: ABC to impose delay on Oscar telecast

References