Sky has been rapped by Ofcom for the second time within the area of a yr over swearing in considered one of its repeat reveals, this time Entourage.
Ofcom mentioned a pre-watershed repeat of Entourage on the Sky Comedy channel in August failed to offer a compulsory pin code to guard under-18s, and the phrase “f***ing” was broadcast. Sky careworn that the phrase got here very quickly after the present began and it was pulled with simply three minutes having elapsed.
Within the UK, Ofcom’s code requires that individuals beneath 18 are shielded from “unsuitable materials” in applications.
Ofcom permits reveals with intercourse, violence or swearing to air earlier than the night watershed so long as they’re protected by a pin code. On this occasion, the pin code failed and youthful viewers had been uncovered to the swearword. Sky mentioned it launched two rapid modifications to stop a reoccurrence, which “add additional fail-safe resilience into the method.”
HBO smash comedy Entourage has been out there as a Sky boxset for almost a decade and is repeatedly repeated.
‘Recreation of Thrones’ incident
Sky added that there’s a “distinction” between the Entourage incident and what occurred with Recreation of Thrones final yr, when a repeat of the mega-hit aired within the morning with out a pin code and under-18s had been in a position to simply entry an episode “which contained a number of use of offensive language together with ‘c**t’, ‘f**ck’ and ‘s**t’.”
The Entourage error, Sky mentioned, was as a consequence of a fault with the “EPG meta knowledge that prompts the PIN demand on a few of our Sky Platforms, not an ‘extra of information’ within the system.” It careworn that Recreation of Thrones and Entourage are the one two breaches out of 23,000 hours value of comparable content material broadcast because the introduction of the pin code in 2020.
Ofcom took under consideration Sky’s pulling of the Entourage repeat virtually instantly after the swearword together with its makes an attempt since to guard viewers from future slip-ups. Nonetheless, the regulator nonetheless discovered the pay-TV big to be in breach of its code.
A current Ofcom report discovered that viewers principal fears round profane content material heart on the necessity to defend youngsters, relatively than any impression these reveals can have on particular person adults.
