Swear quiz costs Virgin £75,000

Virgin Radio was today fined £75,000 after allowing a nine-year-old to participate in a live late-night competition called Swear Word Hangman.

Callers were asked to guess the letters which made up a sexually explicit phrase of swear words in the broadcast, just before midnight on 18 January. The competition was part of a show presented by DJ Jon Holmes. It has since been scrapped by Virgin as a result of the complaint.

The resulting broadcast was "highly offensive and inappropriate even in the context of adult alternative comedy", the Radio Authority said.

Authority chairman Richard Hooper condemned the station's actions as "totally unacceptable", adding that it was a serious breach of 1990 Broadcasting Act rules on taste, decency and offence to public feeling.

"To its credit, Virgin Radio has acknowledged the seriousness of the complaint, has made no attempt to excuse the content of the broadcast and has told us that it has taken steps to prevent this happening again," Mr Hooper said.

The authority also stressed its "grave concern" that Virgin did not have programme production and supervision systems in place to ensure that it did not breach the rules. The station had also failed to comply with the requirements of its national AM and local London FM licences, the authority said.

A Virgin spokesman said today: "Virgin Radio accept that Jon Holmes's broadcast was completely unacceptable. While the nature of this show broadcast after 11pm was irreverent and known for its close-to-the-edge humour, station guidelines were not followed and on this occasion Jon went too far.

"We regret the on-air misjudgment of Jon Holmes and have removed the show."