Gerry Ryan comment ‘theoretical’

SHOCK jock Gerry Ryan may like to brighten his broadcasts with colourful language, but a listener has suggested a repeat of a recent comment could see him stricken from the airwaves.

In the latest list of complaints to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC), the RTÉ presenter has been accused of insulting none other than God by referring to him as part of his anatomy. During an April 29 on-air discussion about the upcoming blasphemy legislation, signed into law by President Mary McAleese yesterday, the broadcaster wondered if someone could be prosecuted for asking if “God is a b****cks”.

The comment resulted in a flurry of criticism over the coarse language used, with listener Shane Brady complaining to the BCC that the comment was in breach of the code of programme standards.

Mr Brady continued that an “intelligent” discussion of the subject could have taken place without the use of such colourful language, suggesting that the comment would have breached the new blasphemy legislation if it was uttered today.

However, the national broadcaster responded by stating the comment was simply a “theoretical question” and that “there was no suggestion whatsoever that God would ever use such coarse language” – a claim the BCC supported by rejecting the complaint.

Among the other 30 complaints overseen by the authority, all of which were rejected, were 15 separate criticisms of the Prime Time expose on Fás funding for community employment schemes in Castlebar.

The complainants had argued that the programme was inaccurate, one-sided, and unfairly damaging to those involved.

However, despite the protestations, the BCC ruled that there were no grounds for any of the complaints.

In recent weeks the BCC has also been contacted over the suggestion that The Oprah Winfrey Show was too sexually explicit in both “fact and tone” for TV3 to broadcast before the watershed and that Today with Pat Kenny was biased against some MEP and local election candidates due to their age.

Further complaints that the reshowing of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl was “demeaning” to the singer, and that Gerry Ryan had referred to an incident in Moyross, Co Limerick, as “a battle, literally a battle” were also made.

However, in all cases the BCC decided that the makers of the programmes involved had no case to answer.