But Gold let off over Eric Idle's f-bomb

The Gold TV channel has escaped censure after the f-bomb was dropped during their live broadcast of Monty Python’s farewell gigs.

Two viewers complained after the censor was too slow in bleeping out an unscripted ‘fuck’ which aired more than an hour and a half before the 9pm watershed.

Eric Idle said the offending word at the end of the Bruce sketch, when he produced a football referee’s red card and told the stereotypical Australian characters to go: ‘Straight off, off. Go on. Off. Fuck off…’

Then a bleep was heard.

During the interval, Dara O Briain, who was presenting the TV coverage from London’s O2 Arena, explained: ‘One naughty swearword, by the way, did slip through. So I apologise for that. And I want my face to indicate a level of professional sincerity as I read those words off the autocue. I cannot apologise enough.’

However, far more complaints were received about the ‘censoring’ of Monty Python Live (Mostly) than the fact an f-word slipped through. Chunks of dialogue were replaced by what one reviewer called ‘the shrillest, whiniest, most grating beep you'll ever hear in your life’, prompting 34 complaints to regulator Ofcom.

During the interval of the July 20 show, O Briain also explained that versions of the Penis Song had been dropped as watchdogs felt it was ‘a little bit too much at 7:46 in the evening. Equally some bad language was bleeped. Gold obviously want to apologise for that, being the policy they have to make because of Ofcom.’

The regulator launched an inquiry into the broadcast of the f-word and has today issued a ruling saying it was ‘a clear example of the most offensive language being broadcast before the watershed’. But because of the measures taken by Gold – including broadcasting with a time delay and O Briain’s apology – the regulator said the issue was resolved.

In its defence, Gold said that it was aware of the challenges set by its first ever live transmission, and pointed out that scripted bad language was ‘successfully bleeped throughout Part 1, but unfortunately an unscripted “fuck” was not successfully bleeped… the bleep [came] in fractionally too late. This was the result of human error…for which we sincerely apologise.’

Published: 6 Oct 2014