GCap screws up... thrice

Perhaps it's all the thought of mergers and networking, but GCap radio stations seem to keep getting themselves into trouble with Ofcom. A couple of weeks ago, a slew of their stations were ticked off for failing to play the music they'd promised; this time round, Ofcom have had to consider a complaint about the surprisingly enthusiastic commentary about a car dealership on Mercia FM:

“…I’m going to get myself over to Coventry’s new Sytner Car Garage on Holyhead Road, between now and Sunday, and pick myself up a brand new BMW M3 saloon
… it’s all very sparkly. They’re unveiling this new M3. Get yourself down there before
Sunday and have a look at all the new nice shiny cars they’re showing off. We’ll be
out and about … giving out prizes, giving out leaflets, explaining what’s going to be
down there. So come and find us in and about Coventry and get down to Sytner on
the Holyhead Road… ”

GCap suggested this was just an enthusiastic young team member making a slip; Ofcom were less forgiving:

We do not believe it is reasonable to say that there was editorial justification to refer to the garage and its products in such exuberant terms simply to describe the Thunder Co-ordinator’s intended location.

More surprisingly, listeners in the West Country were surprised to hear this trail on GWR at breakfast time:

“Easter bunny here. If you laugh at my big teeth again, I’ll knock yours out. Happy f(*)cking Easter, you fatmotherf(*)cker”.

The presenters had bleeped out the vowel sounds in the words and - for some reason - thought that would be good enough.

Oddly, Ofcom seem only to be bothered about the swear words themselves, not the concept of the Easter Bunny threatening violence - which, surely, is a little extreme for a family radio programme?

Oh, and for good measure, XFM played a track with "shit" and "motherfucker" in the lyrics.

Still, at least GCap aren't as terrible as the error made by First Baltic Music Channel - another one of those overseas services which are regulated by Ofcom as they play out from the UK. Indeed, their slip was so bad, it might be the first time Ofcom has considered a complaint from another nation's media regulators, as the Lithuanian TV regulator issued an objection to this scrolling text message, which went out three times:

“To the Aryans! Happy New Year! Love, happiness and success in the New Year! From the Skinheads”

First Baltic Music's response is quite surprising:

Baltic Media Alliance said that all its programmes comply with the Code. It said that
the moderator who allowed the text message to be broadcast had checked the
wording of the message with Microsoft Word’s dictionary which stated that “Arian”
was a “follower of the ancient Greek Christian theologian Arius” and that a “skinhead”
was either a nickname or a British description for a closely-cropped hairstyle. It said that neither one of these terms breached the Code. It said that moderators have a
short time in which to check and consider any message to be broadcast and that in
instances where there is uncertainty, moderators are instructed to check the meanings of words through the Microsoft Word dictionary.

So, it was all Bill Gate's fault for not making the Microsoft Word dictionary a little more explicit about racism, then. Ofcom's judgement suggested that compliance might require a little more effort than merely hoping Word would underline racist bigotry with a squiggly purple line.