Monday, September 10, 2007

Effin' hell: Lily and Monkeys land broadcasters in bother

Liberal use of swearing has caused trouble for the BBC and ITV, in the latest round of Ofcom judgements. The BBC's Glastonbury coverage inadvertently let through a "fuck" from the Arctic Monkeys at teattime:

One viewer contacted Ofcom stating that he was concerned that whilst watching the highlights coverage of Glastonbury at approximately 17:50 on Saturday 23 June 2007, a member of the band, The Arctic Monkeys, said “Now fucking come on now”. The complainant considered that this language could have been edited out.
[...]
The BBC explained that a failure of communication between the recording team and
the outside broadcast control truck meant that the precise point of the recording at
which they should have cut away from the band back to the presenter was not made
sufficiently clear.

Ofcom wasn't having that, and ticked the BBC off.

More surprisingly, This Morning, over on ITV, slipped up with Lily Allen:
Eight viewers complained to Ofcom that a fashion item on kaftans was accompanied by the song “Smile” by Lily Allen which featured the lyric “…but you were fucking that girl next door”.

Kaftans? In 2007?

Anyway, as it the usual way in these matters, ITV blamed human error ("human error" is the new official job title for what used to be called Junior Researchers.) Ofcom welcomed the network's apologies but sighed that it should have been more careful.


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