ITV Ruled To Have ‘Misled Viewers’ With ARMA 2 Footage

In September last year, ITV aired a documentary entitled ‘Exposure: Gaddafi and The IRA’ which was found to use ARMA 2 footage.

ITV had tried to pass off the footage of real footage of an attack by the IRA carried out in 1988. Some  people complained to Ofcom about the incident, so Ofcom decided to launch an investigation to see if ITV had broken broadcasting rules. Today Ofcom announced the findings of the investigation.

We take into account that ITV: apologised; removed the programme from its catch-up video-on-demand service; and has now put in place various changes to its compliance procedures to ensure such incidents do not happen in future.

However, the viewers of this serious current affairs programme were misled as to the nature of the material they were watching.

Ofcom also states that it was “very surprised that the programme makers believed the footage of the helicopter attack was authentic.”

It doesn’t look like ITV have been fined for the code breach.

Source: BBC

15 Comments

  1. Ofcom also states that the regulator was “very surprised that the programme makers believed the footage of the helicopter attack was authentic.”

    Damn straight, the bit where the guy was changing weapons (they just instantly become a different one) was kind of a giveaway!

  2. No, i thought it was 100% real. (sarcasm). How on earth did it get past the editing stage? Just how? It’s not excalty a subtle thing that you can miss. And the program makers believed it was real. :O *facepalms and causes himself injury*

    ITV seem to be incompent when they can’t even tell the difference between a game from a few years back to real life. And they say we can’t tell the difference.

    • I can’t even fathom why nobody spoke up about it before it was broadcast. Does anyone even know whether the attack the supposed footage was meant to represent happenned?

      • I’m pretty sure the IRA did shoot down an actual helicopter.

  3. Colour me shocked at the outcome…

  4. I guess Ofcom are taking the Pirates of the Caribbean approach when sticking to “the code”. Seemingly they are more what you would call guide-lines than actual rules…

    Yar!

    • Best comment I’ve read in a while.

  5. ITV are a joke nowerdays. All of their programming is boring, inaccurate or reality TV rubbish.

  6. “the programme makers believed the footage of the helicopter attack was authentic.”

    Everyone knows this isn’t true.

  7. “Ofcom also states that it was “very surprised that the programme makers believed the footage of the helicopter attack was authentic.””

    So was everyone else. The fact ITV actually fell for was bad enough in itself, let alone actually broadcast it on national TV.

  8. I wonder how pleased the BBC were to report this news? :)

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