Baldwin apologises for NBC show swipe

30 Rock star Alec Baldwin has retracted the negative comments he made about US TV series Scrubs and My Name Is Earl.

The actor took a swipe at both programmes in an interview and blasted what he called the "reprehensible" manner in which NBC was promoting 30 Rock. He claimed that the network was attempting to "wring the last drops" out of the older shows.

Baldwin commented in a blog on The Huffington Post: "My apologies to the cast and crews of My Name Is Earl and Scrubs. In my frustration with NBC's reprehensible promotion of 30 Rock, I took an unfortunate swipe at both of those shows and that was not cool."

This marks Baldwin's second public apology in recent years, after he was caught in 2007 calling his 12-year-old daughter Ireland a "thoughtless little pig" in an answerphone message.