Eight years after London's XFM recieved a record £50,000 fine for broadcasting comments about bestiality, a New Zealand radio station has been reprimanded for bringing up the same subject — but not fined.The New Zealands Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has upheld a complaint against Radio Sport for broadcasting a 30-second clip of a woman supposedly having sex with a bull.
The recording was broadcast at 10am on a Sunday last October.
In a tribunal hearing, Radio Sport said that the station was aimed at an audience of adult males who enjoyed 'bar-room humour'.
But the BSA said that Radio Sport was still expected to exercise caution with its content when children were likely to listen. It said there was no doubt the clip was meant to represent sex between a woman and an animal.
Although it upheld the complaint, the authority decided not to impose any financial sanctions on the station.
In 1999, XFM was fined £50,000 after breakfast presenter Tom Binns made comments about bestiality in a phone-in about "the worst job in the world".
Radio Authority chairman Sir Peter Gibbings said at the time: "The fact that this material was broadcast at breakfast time, when a significant number of young people might be listening, makes the offences even more serious."