Local TV presenter shouted 'f*cking hell' to open news bulletin A TV newsreader in Newcastle, England, opened the station’s Friday night news bulletin by asking to start again before shouting “yes you f*cking do” at off-camera colleagues just 10 seconds after the watershed. The presenter was on Made in Tyne and Wear, a local news station operated by Made Television Limited. The company …
"The company referred itself to telly regulator Ofcom after the foul-mouthed outburst on Friday 9 September, in which the newsreader opened the pre-recorded programme by saying ...
If it was pre-recorded, then it wouldn't have been an issue, they'd just cut it and re-record. So I'm assuming this line is bollocks, and it was a live broadcast. Perhaps the author of the article needs a bit of "Oh sorry, can I start again? Fucking hell."
Or maybe you should actually read the article? Just a thought.
Reading the whole article before replying? Now where would be the fun in that? This way you all get to have a laugh at my expense, so let the pointing and sniggering commence, feel yourself to be comparatively clever, and consider that a public service from Mr. AC. You're welcome.
I refer the dishonorable coward above to exhibit 'B' from the story:
Evidently journalists in the editing suite had failed to cut the first 10 seconds of botched footage from the programme, which was supposed to have been signed off by the news editor and the station manager before broadcast.
Which explains why the broadcast was as it was despite being pre-recorded.
Looks to me like there was a disagreement between the presenter and the camera operators. The recording started before he was ready, and the presenter wanted to restart the recording. The operators didn't want to do it again, so he deliberately said fucking hell to make the recording unusable, just so they would have to restart.
And then, the annoyed operators forgot to do their job of cutting the first part. Or maybe, possibly, they called his bluff... Because in the end, he's the one who ends up looking stupid.
That's what happens when you let the Work Experience Kid do the editing unsupervised... Cheeky Little Scamp!
On another note, it's obvious that the newsreader wasnt from Newcastle, otherwise no one would have known he was swearing, because noone would have understood what he was saying... mind you, every time I speak to a Geordie I think they're swearing at me, even if they're just telling me the time. So maybe Ofcon couldnt understand him either and just assumed he was swearing because, well, he was a Geordie?
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9pm in which fucking Time Zone? Pedantic minds demand to know.
Over here in UK lite (aka the USA) we have no issues watching people being shot at with big huge fuck-off guns at 9pm, but show a nipple or say the word 'fuck' and you're in deep shit with the FCC.
Granted premium channels such as HBO are above such quibbles, but even cable is meant to be free of these controls yet still censors itself as much as the over the air channels do.
Well fucking nuts...
Nah, I think The Reg is more egalitarian than that...the badges mean toss-all except you get a few formatting options.
Profanity is -if anything- subtly encouraged round these parts, probably as a fuck you to the mumsnet types who can recommend stringing people they don't approve of from lamp posts without blinking, and yet reach for the smelling salts if they come across a naughty word.
So I seriously doubt mere profanity would get a post hoofed. Libel will, of course, as The Reg quite sensibly doesn't want to get sued. Some of the authors are more sensitive than others to criticism so -for example- saying that a sentence in an Andrew Orlowski article was Trump-esque in that it contained so much bollocks it was hard to work out where to start refuting it might get a post modded *innocent whistling*
There was also a phase a while back where posts kept going missing for no apparent reason, but that seems to have stopped now.
That's been my experience so far anyway. Everyone else's mileage may vary of course. I've modded myself upon sobering up WAY more than been modded by someone else. And I've pressed the bloody preview button instead of post more times than I intend to admit to. Preview is still my favourite theory.
> Granted premium channels such as HBO are above such quibbles, but even cable is meant to be free of these controls yet still censors itself as much as the over the air channels do
Probably a marketing tactic. I've seen that done in Spain, where there is no problem at all with using vulgarities in mass media, yet programs like MTV (not quite sure if it's a program or an entire channel) deliberately introduce swearing in their scripts and deliberately "bleep" it out. Which, with bleeping being foreign to Spain, looks incredibly ridiculous.
I figured that either they're using Mexican or Spanish-speaking US producers, or they're going for the cultural imperialism formula and if it works in the US we'll make it work elsewhere too.
And I don't know if it's just me (I haven't lived in the UK since I was a boy) but in my day I do not recall there being any beeping there either.
News reader: "And in the Middle East today you would not fucking believe what those idiots are doing now to historical sites..."
"News is coming in that certain knobheads in the South China Seas are dicking about over fishing rights..."
"Jesus Christ almighty, to nobody's surprise bloody Russia has managed to send another unbelievably corrupt sleazoid billionaire to jail on totally fabricated charges..."
When I was a techie at a national radio station, they used to have news scripts very similar to the above which they would give to a newbie news reader who was told that the scheduled reader had suddenly become ill and so he had to go live immediately with no time for preparation. We'd all get a laugh on the other side of the soundproof glass watching him struggle to sanitize the script.
Ofcom's rules say it must be a gradual transition to adult-friendly telly, so as to avoid the situation of junior seeing some tit or bum or hearing naughty words while avoiding his parents' pleas to go to bed.
Hence why Ofcom got so worked up about someone shouting "fucking hell" a whole ten seconds after the watershed.
"Ofcom's rules say it must be a gradual transition to adult-friendly telly, so as to avoid the situation of junior seeing some tit or bum or hearing naughty words while avoiding his parents' pleas to go to bed."
You'll be telling me next HIGNFY is scripted. "9:10, Paul, you can start saying "twat" now. But no fucks till 9:20"
"You tedious trump."
I think you're onto something there Gas - we can simply repurpose suitable politicians into swearwords suitable for both pre- and post-watershed viewing.
This will soon lead to phrases like "What the farage?", "Go farage yourself" and "Stop making such a teresamay of yourself" entering the language.
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"[...] we can simply repurpose suitable politicians into swearwords suitable for both pre- and post-watershed viewing."
Using "Trump" in such a way seems to be a modern equivalent to the eponymous "Gordon Bennett" (Junior).
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/gordon-bennett.html
I tell you, after seeing a few of their programmes they're going to need all the help they can get.
The whole day's programmes appear to be presented by the same three people and the level of professionalism has never been lower. Imagine three students* during Rag Week doing an all-day news channel and this would be the result.
It was compulsive viewing when we were in the North East just because it was so bloody bad.
(* when students were students)
That many? Really? Are they counting individuals or are they counting the even sadder viewers who wtahc it more than once as multiple viewers?
I remember seeing the channel appearing on the program guide when it first started. I managed about 2 minutes before my eyes and ears began to bleed.
At least in the old days of "local" TV we had Naked News, Cello News, etc.
Confused here.
If the presenter proffers an exclamation or uses emphatic language, I do not see how that can cause offence. And in the present case it seemed pretty well justified by the context of a false start.
On the other hand, I have had the displeasure of watching extremely offensive remarks on television, such as gratuitous and quite unfounded diatribes against different minorities, and even having Anthony B***r appearing on live television before nine, without OFCOM moving a finger. *That* I find inexcusable.
Your inability to read and understand the third, fifth and last paragraphs does not constitute a failure of journalism on my part.
Looking over your comment history, it seems that you struggle to understand most, if not all, news stories that you read, and I think your comments make more sense when viewed as cries for help rather than as a Walter Mitty-style fantasy of being in charge of media standards.
Rather than be rude, I shall instead pity you, and I encourage you to talk to these lovely people if you need a sympathetic ear to vent your feelings and frustrations at.
I did see a clip of the news from Australia. The usual setup with a newsdesk in centre shot with the newsroom behind. Unusually, there was quite a racket from the newsroom staff, making it rather difficult to hear what the newsreader was saying:
"Blah, blah, blah.....WILL YOU BASTARDS SHUT UP! I'M TRYING TO READ THE BLOODY NEWS HERE!.... Sorry about that ladies and gentlemen....."
The quote about viewing statistics is carefully worded to obfuscate how few people are watching this stuff. It seems that they had 200,000 "viewers" over a period of 42 days. Probably fewer than 4,700 viewers per day.
It hardly seems worthwhile sticking the shilling in the gas meter for that. Even if they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and could get advertising revenue per viewer equal to the TV licence fee that's just £700,000 pa to run a TV station on and in truth they would be lucky to make as much as a quarter of that.
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