Radio station censured over ‘offensive’ material
The first complaint against Cork's Red FM concerned a July 20 programme where the presenter discussed a message from a male listener, who complained his girlfriend never changed her underwear.
Presenter Victor Barry proceeded to speculate on the smell which would result from this, said he would throw the woman out, and referred to her as "a bitch".
A listener found the programme offensive and made a complaint to the BCC. In its defence, Red FM said its target audience Cork people under 35 desired "at times, a certain sense of humour and irony".
"The presenter, Mr Barry was certainly not referring to all women as bitches and the huge majority of the radio station's late-night audience would be abundantly clear with this," it said.
But the BCC upheld the complaint saying the programme "was in bad taste", "offensive", and infringed the Broadcasting Act, 2001.
It upheld on similar grounds another complaint against Red FM which related to DJs on an early- morning show discussing penis lengths. The station is now obliged to broadcast both BCC decisions.
Meanwhile, motor insurer AA Ireland also came to the attention of the BCC after an advertisement for a policy differed from what was offered to a customer.
The ad for the policy ran on RTÉ Radio 1 on October 16, and the offer was subject to a three-year no- claims driving record.
That day, the customer in question rang the AA, only to hear on its automated message system he needed to be accident-free for four years. On speaking to a sales assistant, he was told he had to be accident-free for five years. He referred to the advert without success.
The customer complained AA Ireland to the BCC, which found "the advertisement was misleading," and upheld the complaint.
AA Ireland has since said the advert was correct but the message system which the customer rang was wrong. The advert will continue running.
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