Casualty in hot water over foul-mouthed mistake
An episode of Casualty found itself in trouble with TV regulator Ofcom after it broke broadcasting rules when swear words appeared in the subtitles before the watershed when it was shown by the Drama channel.
The popular medical drama is suitable for the usual time slot when it airs on a Saturday evening. However, repeats of older series are shown on the TV channel Drama during the day, meaning that a different set of rules are applied for the audience.
Ofcom received a complaint about offensive language in the subtitles of a repeated episode, which aired at 10:30 am on June 12.
Two instances of the 'F' word appeared, even though it was not heard being said on the show.
This resulted in Ofcom ruling the programme had breached its rule that prohibiting the "most offensive language on television before the watershed" as it aired at 10:30 am on Drama.
UKTV Media, which holds the licence for Drama, apologised for the incident and said the episode was "incorrectly subtitled."
The subtitling is outsourced it explained and UKTV said they've taken action to stop this happening again.
A spokesperson from UKTV revealed: "This subtitling error occurred due to human error and we apologise for any offence caused. We have comprehensive guidance in place, which has been reshared with the subtitling team.
"We take our commitment to providing subtitling for our viewers extremely seriously and we continue to exceed the required quota for subtitling and audio description on our channels."
Media watchdog Ofcom added that while it took into account UKTV had not had this issue before and took action to address it afterwards, there were no mitigating factors such as on-air apology.
They ruled the broadcast was in breach of rule 1.14 of the code, meaning that: “The most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed (in the case of television)…”.
Casualty airs on Saturdays on BBC One. The latest episodes are available on BBC iPlayer.
To see which Casualty episodes are coming up next, take a look at our TV Guide for the most up-to-date listings.
