Global complaints cleared

In the latest Ofcom broadcast bulletin, recent issues with Capital FM and Heart in Luton have been resolved thanks to swift action from Global Radio.

At Heart, a breakfast interview with Daniel Merriweather received one complaint for language. Over at Capital, there was a problem with text entries for tickets to their Jingle Bell Ball.

In November, a listener made a complaint to Capital about entering by text to win tickets around 40 times and still not winning. The competition was charged at the entrants mobile network rates.

After an investigation, Global management found that 94 draws had been affected by a technical error which meant only one entry made from any mobile phone number had been entered into a draw. Subsequent entries, whether made into the same draw or any further draws, had not been included.

Global contacted the regulator to notify them of the issue and acted by issuing more tickets, indentifying all affected entrants and re-running each draw. Ofcom noted that Global had taken swift action to appropriately resolve the issue and no entrant was materially disadvantaged.

Richard Park, Director of Broadcasting said: "Global is committed to its policy of best practice with all competitions across its brands, and as such informed OFCOM as soon as the issue was identified. We're very glad the team at Global was able to resolve the issue immediately and that Ofcom consider the matter resolved."

Over at Heart 97.6, a live interview on the breakfast show ended up with singer Daniel Merriweather using the word ‘[censored]’. Despite immediate apologies from the presenters and the singer, one listener complained to Ofcom. The regulator had to investigate with regards to Rule 1.14, which states offensive language must not be broadcast when children are particularly likely to be listening.

Global said the interview was due to be pre-recorded, in accordance with Heart policy, but a flight delay meant it had to be conducted live. The singer was briefed by a producer before going on air and the station felt comfortable that he understood the standards expected by guests on-air.

Ofcom decided the issue was resolved because of the presenters swift action to apologise and conclude the interview. They also accepted reasons why the interview was live and not pre-recorded and took no action.