UKTV has been wrapped by Ofcom for subtitling the phrase “f***ing” twice throughout a repeat of Casualty that aired at 10.30 within the morning.
British broadcasters aren’t allowed to swear in exhibits previous to the 9 p.m. GMT watershed however UKTV stated on this occasion the phrase was “incorrectly subtitled” and was “not audible” in this system.
The BBC Studios-owned community of channels, which incorporates UKTV Drama – the channel the place the incident occured – was discovered this morning to be in breach of the regulator’s code that states: “Probably the most offensive language should not be broadcast earlier than the watershed.”
UKTV laid the blame on the ft of subtitling outsourcer Purple Bee Media. UKTV stated it contacted Purple Bee as quickly because it was notified of the swearing faux-pas in June and that Purple Bee has a “variety of processes and checks in place that ought to have prevented this phrase from erroneously showing within the subtitles.”
In keeping with UKTV, “the subtitler accountable didn’t observe the agreed procedures” and “didn’t examine the printed time, and wrongly assumed that the programme was scheduled post-watershed”. It additionally stated that the subtitler “didn’t observe Purple Bee’s protocols” and had not referred the content material to their line supervisor or responsibility managers.
The subtitler has been “disciplined and withdrawn from subtitling duties till they’ve been by way of an intensive retraining course of with their line supervisor,” the Ofcom ruling added.
Ofcom took into consideration UKTV’s feedback about Purple Bee in its ruling but additionally criticized UKTV for failing to make an on air apology.
“Ofcom took into consideration [UKTV’s] representations that it had not skilled this problem earlier than and that it took motion to handle the difficulty as soon as notified of it,” added the ruling.
“Nonetheless, in Ofcom’s view, these components wouldn’t have mitigated the offence prompted to viewers on account of this broadcast.”
UKTV has been discovered to be in breach however is not going to be fined. An identical incident occured earlier this 12 months when Sky by chance aired a repeat of Sport of Thrones in the course of the day that used offensive language together with “c**t”, “f**ck” and “s**t.”
