Ofcom finds Capital Breakfast in breach over offensive language

Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp, Chris Stark and Sian Welby has been found in breach of the Broadcasting Code after a song with offensive language was played on air.

Ofcom received a complaint about the song containing the “f” word at 7.30am in the live programme during a pre-recorded interview with Michael Bublé and Jason Derulo which included a mash-up of several of the guests’ songs.

Global said during the checking of the content, the swear word complained about in Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love” was missed and that the word wasn’t clearly audible and added that the team responsible for checking content “believed the lyric was something else entirely”.

Global also said that “it is standard practice for the programme team to rigorously check all pre-recorded content before it is played out on air, and for this particular segment two producers checked the full interview recording over many times before it was played out”.

During these checks the team identified and bleeped out the word ‘high’ which it said demonstrated how conscious they were that this type of language that could be associated with drugs or alcohol, was not appropriate for the breakfast show audience.

There were no complaints received directly to Capital and Global said that the interview isn’t available on the station’s catch-up service.

Ofcom said it noted the relatively small proportion of children compared to the overall audience for this time slot, but it has clearly set out the times when it considers that children are particularly likely to be listening to radio.

After taking into account the explanation of the circumstances that led to the offensive language being aired and the steps taken as a result of the broadcast, including removing the content from its catch-up service, Ofcom decided the station was in breach of Rule 1.14.