MTV fined £255k for "persistent" swearing

MTV has been fined £255,000 for breaking broadcast rules with persistent swearing before the watershed and an instance of homophobia and racism.

Ofcom recorded a list of breaches of its Broadcasting Code between June 2006 and September last year on TMF, MTV France, MTV UK (now MTV1) and MTV Hits.

Numerous viewers complained during the period, the regulator said, despite its warning MTV about previous breaches.

Severe swear words were found to have been used across the MTV-owned channels on several occasions from as early as 9am.

One viewer complained that racist and homophobic text messages, in French, were displayed on MTV France in a late-night programme called Belge Chat. They included the message "Immigrants are going to f**k your mother".

A TMF trailer for Totally Jodie Marsh, broadcast during the day, included the sentence: “I just don’t want you settling down with some f**king w**ker from a modelling agency."

MTV said it had now spent "hundreds of thousands of pounds" on new compliance policies and systems led by "top level" management. The changes are also being monitored by senior staff at MTV's US-based owner Viacom.

Ofcom said: "In this case... management failed to take effective action to prevent their recurrence, despite the existence of a centralised compliance department.

"As a result Ofcom has some very serious concerns about MTV Network’s compliance structures, which had been totally inadequate. The extensive improvements which now appear to have been made have been noted. Given its [young] target audience, however, Ofcom expects MTV Networks to take its responsibilities far more seriously than before."