THE Kiss FM breakfast show has been given the largest fine to be imposed on a British radio station for serious breaches of broadcasting rules.

Emap Radio, the owner, was ordered to pay £175,000 for a hoax interview and failing to protect children from foul and sexually explicit language during the show, presented by the DJ Bam Bam. It has terminated his £1.2 million contract.

Bam Bam, whose real name is Peter Poulton, is a Sony Award-winning DJ whose show had 800,000 listeners. He was the London station’s star DJ for seven years but Ofcom, the independent regulator, found his show guilty of eight broadcasting code breaches in six months. One of his offences was appearing to condone group and under-age sex when children were listening.

The most serious breach was when Bam Bam’s assistant, Streetboy, posed as a human resources officer and made a hoax call to a man to discuss his redundancy options. The man became increasingly desperate as he was told that he was fit only for “flipping burgers”. When the item ended, the presenters were heard laughing and acknowledging that Streetboy had been “dealing with this guy’s whole future and career”.

Ofcom said that the “degrading” sequence was “the most serious case of unwarranted infringement of privacy” that it had dealt with. There was no public interest justification and the victim had suffered deep distress.

Streetboy is still employed by Kiss FM to carry out prank calls on the breakfast show.

Ofcom received complaints from parents over Bam Bam’s sexually explicit discussions. It ruled that a discussion about teenagers engaging in group sex demonstrated an “admiration for under-age sex”.

Emap argued that an 8.30am discussion about a woman refusing to take “£50 extra for anal” was an “effective moral debate” about a “woman’s motivation for moving into porn”.

Ofcom was angered that foul language was broadcast despite being pre-recorded. Kiss FM was out of control, with management unable or unwilling to monitor its output. The regulator accused Emap of “totally inexcusable broadcasts, which showed an almost wilful disregard by the licensee for not only Ofcom’s codes but also the station’s audience”.

Emap admitted that its procedures were not “up to spec”. It had “terminated” the breakfast show, sacked the producer and replaced its programme director. Emap appealed against a fine, arguing that it had suffered losses in advertising revenue by cancelling the show.

But Ofcom was annoyed that Emap had not improved its performance after being fined £125,000 last year over offensive remarks made about the murdered Iraq hostage Kenneth Bigley on its Manchester station. This time it fined Emap £75,000 for the hoax call and £100,000 for the seven sex and language breaches. The money goes to the Treasury.

Bam Bam, who is 36, is likely to return, although he has turned down an offer to join Capital FM. Thousands of fans download his podcasts.

• Jeremy Vine has apologised to Radio 2 listeners after his show ran a spoof news item saying that Ian Huntley, the Soham killer, had been murdered in his prison cell. Cambridgeshire Police, which investigated the Soham murders four years ago, will make a formal complaint to the BBC over the “irresponsible” spoof during a debate about tabloid journalism.

  THE OFFENCES

  July 5, 2005: Employee discussing redundancy put through to a presenter posing as “human resources”. It was Ofcom’s “most serious case of unwarranted infringement of privacy”

  April 27, 2005: Discussion of sex industry at 8.30am in breach of the code that protects young listeners

  April 28, 2005: Discussion on under-16s engaging in group sex. It gave the “impression that under-age sex was acceptable”

  June 13, 2005: Inappropriate sexual language used in pre-recorded “wind-up” phone call

  June 21, 2005: Inappropriate language in discussion about film premiere at 8.42am

  September 19, 2005: Inappropriate language “when children were likely to be listening”

  September 21, 2005: Inappropriate sexual discussion at 7.45am. “Uncomfortably similar in tone to an adult sex line. Figures indicated that a significant number of children were listening”

  November 15, 2005: Ineffective bleeping of the word “f***” in a “wind-up” call that was pre-recorded

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