ITV apologises for Celebrity Love Island swearing

by Joe Lepper, Brand Republic 01-Aug-05, 13:00

LONDON - ITV has been forced to apologise after a blunder led to the inclusion of swearing in a pre-watershed trailer for 'Celebrity Love Island'.

Four viewers contacted regulator Ofcom about the trailer, broadcast at 8.55pm on May 30, in which the word "shit" was heard during an argument between contestants and other swearwords were understood, despite being bleeped.

According to Ofcom, ITV has issued an apology and blamed the blunder on "an unintentional human error" caused by "the pressure of producing a near-live trailer in Fiji and confusion over what time it was to be played".

Ofcom now considers the complaint resolved and will not take further action following the apology from ITV, which also took immediate action to remind producers of the pre-9pm parameters as well as reviewing the schedule for similar combative trailers.

Meanwhile, in latest figures released by Ofcom, the regulator also received 23 complaints relating to Channel Four's 'Big Brother 6', in which viewers were concerned at use of language, sexual portrayal and matters likely to cause offence. However, all were thrown out as either not being in breach or outside of Ofcom's remit.

Other programmes to receive complaints that were subsequently knocked back include 'Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares' and BBC Three's Glastonbury coverage, both involving bad language.

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