This article is more than 1 year old

Local TV presenter shouted 'f*cking hell' to open news bulletin

Newcastle firm takes rap on knuckles from Ofcom

A TV newsreader in Newcastle, England, opened the station’s Friday night news bulletin by asking to start again before shouting “yes you f*cking do” at off-camera colleagues just 10 seconds after the watershed.

The presenter was on Made in Tyne and Wear, a local news station operated by Made Television Limited.

The company referred itself to telly regulator Ofcom after the foul-mouthed outburst on Friday, September 9, in which the newsreader opened the pre-recorded programme by saying:

Oh sorry, can I start again? Fucking hell. What? You what? I think you’ll find that you fucking do.

Highlighting how its rules state that “material which may cause offence” must be “justified by the context”, a suitably tongue-in-cheek Ofcom invited Made TV to explain how saying “fucking hell” during a news programme, in the first 10 seconds after the 9pm watershed, complied with this.

The red-faced firm said it realised the mistake “immediately” and made an on-air apology during the following Monday’s broadcast, as well as pulling the episode from its catch-up player.

Evidently journalists in the editing suite had failed to cut the first 10 seconds of botched footage from the programme, which was supposed to have been signed off by the news editor and the station manager before broadcast.

Made in Tyne and Wear claims to have had 200,000 viewers for its news programming in the six weeks between the end of August and the beginning of October this year.

Ofcom found Made TV in breach of two of its rules on foul language. ®

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