Emap Radio had argued in its submission to the regulator that a
large fine would make producing quality programming even harder,
given the difficult financial year which commercial radio has had.
The fine comes on top of the previous largest ever, a £125,000 levy
against the company's Key 103 station in Manchester last year.
The fine relates to several complaints, the most serious of
which was a 'fairness and privacy' complaint by an anonymous man,
Mr R. One of the radio station's DJs, Streetboy, posed as the a
human resources staff member at Mr R's company, where he was being
made redundant and had applied for other posts.
In the call, which was broadcast without Mr R's consent,
Streetboy ridiculed Mr R's qualifications and abilities.
Even Emap admitted in its submission that it had been in “bad
taste for our breakfast show to take advantage of both the mistaken
phone number divert, and the person who received the return
call”.
Ofcom's ruling said: "There was obvious distress and unfairness
to the complainant in the broadcast of the programme as well as an
unwarranted infringement of privacy in both the making and
broadcast of the item. The programme-makers’ treatment of Mr R was
totally unacceptable. They showed a serious disregard for the
consequences of their actions."
Other complaints related to sexual content and inappropriate
language for shows broadcast often at breakfast time.
The managing director of London's Kiss 100 claimed that the
company is trying to stamp out such behaviour. “As a radio station
that tries to push the boundaries whilst engaging the capital’s
biggest young, urban audience, we accept that we can sometimes
unintentionally overstep the mark," said Griffin. "We have made
every effort to prevent a reoccurrence and we fully accept Ofcom’s
findings and apologise for any offence caused.”
Ofcom said that a high fine was justified because the company
had clearly not put in place enough controls after previous fines.
Ofcom said that its material relating to Mr R's case was not heard
by anyone senior at the company for four weeks.
"In Ofcom’s view, the number and seriousness of the breaches
between April and November last year suggests that for a
substantial period of time the compliance of the show was evidently
not under proper control," said Ofcom in its ruling. "There
appeared to be a total inability of management to impose structures
to ensure that there was adequate compliance with Ofcom’s Codes and
that the station broadcast acceptable material at this time."
"Senior management at the company admitted to what they referred
to as taking their “eye off [their] core duty”. These failures
meant that an Ofcom investigation of some very serious complaints
was not adequately dealt with."
