KTV lands in trouble with Ofcom for third time this year
KTV has been pulled up by Ofcom for the third time this year, this time for broadcasting offensive material during daytime hours.
The media regulator said it was during routine monitoring that it had discovered the incident on the show ‘Sangeen Mamlay’ on 20th September 2018 at 16:00. Two presenters discussed the reasons why, in India, some parties to marital disputes were resorting to violence, particularly in a number of high profile cases. The presenters expressed concern that social media was being used increasingly to highlight marital disputes, therefore bringing additional unwanted attention to both parties. At the end of the discussion, the presenters said that they would broadcast two videos, demonstrating the types of footage featuring acts of violence arising in marital disputes that can be found on social media. Two videos were then broadcast back to back, which included cuss words and violence.
KTV said it still wished to “express deep regret” that human error had resulted in this material being broadcast inappropriately. KTV said that Sangeen Mamlay is broadcast at 21:00 on Wednesdays and repeated at 16:00 on Thursdays. It added that its production team in India typically produce one version of the show for international broadcast. However, the Licensee explained that “when any programme contains content unsuitable for broadcast prior to the watershed, a second ‘clean edit’ is sent alongside” for the repeat broadcast slot. However, KTV said that on Thursday 20th September at 16:00, the episode that was broadcast was the post-watershed version. It added that this error occurred due to the programme file being “erroneously entered into the daily playlist due to incorrect titling, which failed to denote it was not suitable for broadcast pre-watershed”.
KTV did not seek to defend ‘Sangeen Mamlay’ and apologised again for its broadcast. It stressed that changes had been made to its compliance procedures in order for it “to strive towards a regulation compliant environment” and that “these errors…took place in 2018 due to certain personnel who no longer are employed by KTV”.
Ofcom concluded that the broadcaster has been found in breach of Rules 1.11, 1.14 and 2.3. It also said that it was minded also to consider this & previous breaches for the imposition of a statutory sanction.