[James2001]

When I was watching the old episodes of The Bill when they were on UKTV Play, I was definitely shocked what they were able to get away with in the late 80s/early 90s, stuff you'd never get away with now. Even all the "piss", "crap" and "bastards" which I'm suprised regularly get left in the Drama repeats are mild compared to some of it. A lot of the episodes were 15 rated and pin protected.

There's some similar language (especially coming from Nick Cotton's mouth) in the early EastEnders (which Drama cut most of), but nothing like The Bill or Brookside was doing.

I have a feeling the sort of language Drama leaves in the lunchtime Bill repeats probably wouldn't be able to be got away with on a daytime BBC1 or ITV drama though (I'm not sure even Corrie and EastEnders in the evenings would get away with it appearing more than occasionally). There will be a difference with 20 year old repeats watched by a much smaller audience.

I guess they can just do what Brookside did and release f-bomb fuelled 18 rated video releases, which just takes things too far in the other direction from overly sanitised pre-watershed drama.