UKTV's Watch rapped over 'violent' Torchwood showings

UKTV's pay-TV channel Watch has been criticised by Ofcom for broadcasting episodes of Torchwood in the daytime that included offensive language and violent content.

Torchwood, the spinoff from science fiction drama Doctor Who, is aimed at an adult audience and is typically broadcast by the BBC after the 9pm watershed.

However, Watch aired an episode of the show on September 5 at 4pm that contained one use of the word "f**k", along with 15 examples of milder swear words such as "s**t", "b*llocks" and "p*ssed".

The episode also featured a scene in which a character's neck was bitten open, causing blood to spray from the wound. Another episode of the show, aired on Watch on September 21, featured a male character being stabbed.

UKTV apologised for any "distress and upset" caused to its viewers, and accepted that the incident raised issues about its compliance practices, which were handled by a third-party operator in the case of Torchwood.

The company said that it had withdrawn the show from its schedule and would not broadcast further episodes "until the entire series had been reviewed".

After identifying "other potentially problematic titles from the library of programmes complied by the same supplier" UKTV said that it has also "marked them for review".

UKTV said that this review process may take "a matter of weeks" to complete, meaning there could be the "risk of a repeated failure" in the meantime.

In its ruling, Ofcom said that the violence and swearing in the two episodes of Torchwood was inappropriately scheduled on Watch at 4pm.

Ofcom acknowledged the action taken by UKTV to improve its compliance procedures in the future, but said that it was concerned over warnings of "repeated failure" before the review was complete.

The regulator further noted that UKTV was recently guilty of a similar breach on its Really digital channel, involving some of the most offensive language being aired before the watershed.