TV watchdogs have criticised the Chris Moyles Channel 5 show for allowing a caller to swear live on air - station bosses are now being asked to consider a 'delay mechanism' so that the TV bosses have a facility to bleep out any future swearing. The swearing incident happened when Moyles asked whether a caller had experienced the previous night's earthquake in Birmingham, "I fucking did, Chris," the caller replied. The ITV said that while it "noted there had been no further instances of strong language of this nature" it "advised the licensee that consideration should be given to measures such as a delay mechanism to avoid similar incidents". While apologising for the slip Channel 5 said the language was an example of the "casual swearing so commonplace among large sectors of the population". Chris Moyles' TV show, produced by Chris Evans, has been commissioned for a second series even though audience figures haven't been quite as high as originally hoped.
Moyles likes to be controversial of course - he's got in trouble at Radio 1 for saying he'd like to "tear the head off" Popstars judge Neil Fox and "poo down his neck", and for saying, of teenage singer Charlotte Church, that he'd like to "lead her through the forest of sexuality now she had reached 16".
Evans too has had problems with regulators in the past - TFI Friday was famously shifted from being live to being pre-recorded after Shaun Ryder went on a verbal rampage during a live interview.