Community arts station found to be in breach of broadcasting code by Ofcom. Image: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

Community arts radio station Resonance FM has been found in breach of the broadcasting code for comments made during a music programme playing Scottish music.

Ofcom investigated a number comments that included:

Cameron going up to Scotland is having the opposite effect. He has forgotten there hasn’t been a Scottish Tory MP in Scotland for a very long time. Although, I think there might be one now, that’s one in the whole country. Therein lies a thought.
****
People have been asking me, ‘Henry, how do you think it’s going to be if Scotland goes independent?’ And my reply is, ‘I think it will be perfect.’”

Resonance is run by London Musicians’ Collective Limited and LMCL apologized for broadcasting the comments on polling day which it accepted was a serious mistake.

But it argued the edition of ‘Wanted’ was: ‘light-hearted rather than mocking, celebratory in tone rather than coercive in intention.’

It denied ‘a generalised bias in our output.’

Ofcom said: ‘we considered that the two transmissions of Wanted, when considered on their own were clearly one-sided treatments of the Scottish Independence Referendum.’

It added:

LMCL did not provide any evidence of how it had reflected the viewpoint of the ‘No’ campaign across the output of Resonance FM as a whole during the referendum period, to counter the criticisms being made of the ‘No’ campaign during the two broadcasts of the programme Wanted on 16 September 2014 and 18 September 2014.

****

We considered that the broadcast of a number of clearly one-sided views and opinions in these two programmes, by the presenter in this case, constituted a significant imbalance of views and opinions on a significant matter of political controversy.