Earthy language

Last summer's Live Earth concerts turned out to be controversial not only for the nature of the BBC's coverage (judged by some to be non-partisan though that's a whole separate debate), but also for the amount of swearing that was clearly audible during some of the daytime coverage of the concert.

Separate from the Ofcom ruling but related to Live Earth is the alleged story of the BBC employee who was responsible for transmission compliance checking being in a meeting (concerning the Live Earth concert itself, strangely enough) that took place during the concert whilst swearing was being broadcast on national BBC television.

The BBC naturally defended its output on the basis that it was live, but in Ofcom's opinion 'live' is no longer a defence against the broadcast of (presumably excessive) swearing.

And of course there's the whole issue of how much regulatory power Ofcom has against the BBC; its powers relate to UK television transmission in a general sense, hence bad language comes under Ofcom's jurisdiction in this instance.

But should we be overly bothered about the rare daytime broadcast of words that you can easily overhear just by walking past a crowd of schoolchildren or in a shopping centre? And we know full well that pop stars like to cajole the audience that they are performing to, so will Ofcom's rule signal the end of the truly live broadcast?

Having said that, there is perhaps still a case for a degree of restraint to be shown in relation to the broadcast of live events - especially when young children are likely to be watching - but this is an issue that needs to be revisited as opposed to just dishing out punishments based on a set of rules.