Boom Radio and Radio Winchcombe in breach for playing sweary songs

Boom Radio has received two complaints about broadcasting offensive language in the music track You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette.

The song, which contained one use of the F word, was playing ‘during the school run’ according to one of the complainants.

Also this week, Ofcom has announced that Radio Winchcombe played Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, also in a 4pm hour.

Boom Radio said that it had not intended for the song to be broadcast “in the form it was”. It said it was “aware there were alternate versions” and that it had “downloaded the one which was marked appropriately, but it had been incorrectly labelled”.

The Licensee said, “in that respect, we agree with the complainants in that we would not have chosen to air the version we did”.

However, the station added that 94% of Boom listening is from those aged 55+ and that its “under 18 audience registers at zero”.

The station argued against Ofcom’s finding that children are particularly likely to be listening, and questioned why it was upholding this complaint when it didn’t pursue a complaint in 2021 regarding three uses of the F word.

Ofcom concluded: We considered the Licensee’s reference to a previous complaint about offensive language which Ofcom did not pursue. However, Ofcom also noted the differences in the circumstances of the two cases, specifically that the previous case had involved the accidental use of offensive language in live programming which had been followed by a sincere apology.

“Ofcom’s decision not to pursue this case was in line with Ofcom’s 2021 offensive language research, which found that participants considered the accidental use of the offensive language in live programming that was clearly a mistake to be more acceptable, particularly if it was followed by a timely apology. By contrast, in the present case, Boom Radio admitted that it had broadcast a version of a song that “had been incorrectly labelled”. We therefore considered that it could – and should – have known the nature of the content prior to broadcast.”

Meanwhile, Radio Winchcombe apologised to Ofcom for the broadcast of the offensive language, and said that it was “just as shocked as Ofcom in learning a track with explicit content” was broadcast and that there had been no apology or realisation that a mistake had been made.

The Licensee explained that the presenter was a relatively new volunteer and said that he had been “unwilling to accept any input we tried to give him about his show”.

It added that it had previously considered whether to allow the presenter to continue at the station, but had concluded that it did not have “significant enough concerns”.

The presenter provided his representations via email, which was sent to Ofcom directly. The presenter said that he “regret[s] ever playing that song” and that he has never “played a rude word and never would”. He explained that, following feedback from a listener that his show did not feature enough modern music, he began playing the top three songs in the Singles Charts, which he downloaded from the internet as he thought it “would be ideal for the younger listeners to hear”.

The presenter said that he did not know the song and did not hear the offensive language as the song was broadcast. He added that, had he known that there was offensive language in the song, he would not have played it, and that he had apologised to the Licensee when he was made aware of the broadcast of offensive language.

The presenter said that he had not been “shown how to use the main broadcasting computer or the 2 console[s] very much at all” and that he had therefore found these difficult to operate.

The presenter has since stopped presenting his show on the station.