TI
I did not see Outside Source, but I would imagine Ofcom would accept that it was broadcast on a news channel not aimed at children, there was a warning (although it was late), BBC News was taking the programme live and was technically not in control of the feed which was being produced by the World News team and the topic of the item was racist attacks against police.
News may not be explicitly exempt but I have certainly seen swearing in the House of Commons not being apologised for, and that was during PMQ's.
EDIT: It appears that Outside Source is not on iPlayer and the BBC News schedule doesn't actually list it as being aired, which is interesting.
As regards "the most offensive language" (whatever that is, but we think it includes the F word), not aimed at children is only relevant to radio as there is no watershed on radio and the rules there are about whether children are particularly likely to be in audience. On free-to-air television however, it is irrelevant as the mere fact it is before the watershed is against the Ofcom Broadcasting Code as there is a complete ban on "the most offensive language" before the watershed:
While I appreciate we're talking about the F-word not the N-word, in that GMB report last year Ofcom certainly accept "it's a news programme not aimed at children" as a valid excuse
For the reasons outlined above, we considered the use of the word in full had the potential to be highly offensive and was therefore potentially unsuitable for children to hear broadcast before the watershed. We therefore considered whether there was strong enough context to justify the broadcast of this content before the watershed.
For all the reasons outlined above, we considered the discussion provided strong contextual justification for the use of the word in full. In particular, we took careful account of audience expectations of GMB, which as a news programme is not aimed at children, although we acknowledged this content was broadcast at a time when children could have been watching. We also considered, as outlined above, that GMB is a programme which regularly discusses challenging subjects and regular viewers were likely to be aware of this.
It doesn't matter if a broadcaster is not in control of a feed, as the responsibility for what is broadcast lies with them.
There's certainly exceptions, we just had this discussion last sunday on Super Bowl thread, with the BBC delaying their feed to avoid commercial references to Pepsi and the like, but Sky don't and broadcast sponsorship messages we don't allow in this country such as the commentary team telling us to drink it.
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post1289923#post-1289923
Whether that applies to news coverage, is unknown, maybe there is some CNN Domestic/International comparison someone can make.
I did not see Outside Source, but I would imagine Ofcom would accept that it was broadcast on a news channel not aimed at children, there was a warning (although it was late), BBC News was taking the programme live and was technically not in control of the feed which was being produced by the World News team and the topic of the item was racist attacks against police.
News may not be explicitly exempt but I have certainly seen swearing in the House of Commons not being apologised for, and that was during PMQ's.
EDIT: It appears that Outside Source is not on iPlayer and the BBC News schedule doesn't actually list it as being aired, which is interesting.
As regards "the most offensive language" (whatever that is, but we think it includes the F word), not aimed at children is only relevant to radio as there is no watershed on radio and the rules there are about whether children are particularly likely to be in audience. On free-to-air television however, it is irrelevant as the mere fact it is before the watershed is against the Ofcom Broadcasting Code as there is a complete ban on "the most offensive language" before the watershed:
While I appreciate we're talking about the F-word not the N-word, in that GMB report last year Ofcom certainly accept "it's a news programme not aimed at children" as a valid excuse
Quote:
For the reasons outlined above, we considered the use of the word in full had the potential to be highly offensive and was therefore potentially unsuitable for children to hear broadcast before the watershed. We therefore considered whether there was strong enough context to justify the broadcast of this content before the watershed.
For all the reasons outlined above, we considered the discussion provided strong contextual justification for the use of the word in full. In particular, we took careful account of audience expectations of GMB, which as a news programme is not aimed at children, although we acknowledged this content was broadcast at a time when children could have been watching. We also considered, as outlined above, that GMB is a programme which regularly discusses challenging subjects and regular viewers were likely to be aware of this.
It doesn't matter if a broadcaster is not in control of a feed, as the responsibility for what is broadcast lies with them.
There's certainly exceptions, we just had this discussion last sunday on Super Bowl thread, with the BBC delaying their feed to avoid commercial references to Pepsi and the like, but Sky don't and broadcast sponsorship messages we don't allow in this country such as the commentary team telling us to drink it.
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post1289923#post-1289923
Whether that applies to news coverage, is unknown, maybe there is some CNN Domestic/International comparison someone can make.