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Community radio station criticised for airing sweary lyrics during kids show

By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 5 July 2023

Northampton-based community radio station Inspiration FM breached broadcasting rules by playing Central Cee’s ‘Let’s Go’ at 10.48am on a Saturday morning without the swear words edited out.

That’s according to media regulator OfCom, which is concerned about the impact the lyric “the last time that we fucked was fucked” might have had on the all the children out there in radio land.

Well, mainly the children who were actually presenting on the station at the time. Because this occurred during the ‘IFM Kids’ show on 14 Jan this year, the four presenters of which were aged ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen respectively.

It seems unlikely that hearing the lyric will have actually traumatised anyone at all – in the studio or otherwise – and especially no one under the age of eighteen.

Though for the four children in the studio, who realised immediately that they’d broken the strict “no fucks allowed” rule of daytime radio, the whole thing was probably quite stressful. Which makes all this slightly odd: ie kids being traumatised because they broke a rule that aims to protect the welfare of kids.

The OfCom report on the incident confirms that the children presenting the ‘IFM Kids’ show stopped the Central Cee track as soon as they heard the fucks, with one quickly stating “I’m really sorry it had swearing in it”.

Another added that the track didn’t have the ‘E’ symbol that denotes ‘explicit lyrics’ on the station’s music system. “There was no ‘E’, how was I meant to know?”, one of the other presenters commented.

After someone complained about the incident to OfCom, bosses at Inspiration FM told the regulator that in the 27 years it has broadcast its ‘IFM Kids’ show, nothing like this has every happened before. They also stressed the unedited version of the Central Cee track was played by mistake and that the presenters apologised immediately.

But, in its report, OfCom criticises the station for failing to ensure that the sweary version of the Central Cee track could not be played in the studio. They also add that the on-air conversation between the child presenters after the swears had been aired suggests that they were not being properly supervised.

“We noted that, when the offensive language was broadcast, there did not appear to be any adult intervention or presence in the studio”, the regulator says in its report.

Inspiration FM’s own policies state that any presenters under the age of sixteen must be supervised, though the station admitted that it was short-staffed back in January due to illness.

“We took into account the licensee’s representations that the song had been played in error”, OfCom states. “However, we noted that Inspiration Radio had had the opportunity to check the song prior to broadcast and failed to do so. This failure had resulted in the young presenters being exposed to offensive and unsuitable content”.

“We acknowledged the various steps taken by Inspiration Radio since the incident to improve compliance”, it adds. “However, for the reasons listed above, we considered that the licensee failed to take due care over the welfare and the dignity of the child presenters, in breach of [broadcasting rules]”.