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BBC News apologises for on air ticker blunder

Posted on 24th May 2022
By The Clean Feed Team
Last updated on 3rd July 2023
Filed under Bloopers

The BBC has apologised for a message that appeared on the BBC News Channel’s ticker this morning.

The text “Manchester United are rubbish” appeared on screen shortly after 9.30am after a technical glitch resulted in messages being keyed into a test system as part of a training exercise making it on to the on air ticker.

Another test message “Weather rain everywhere” was also seen by viewers.

Later in the morning, the BBC News Channel made an on air apology for the error.

Presenter Anita McVeigh: “Let me just explain what was happening: behind the scenes, someone was training to learn how to use the ticker and to put text on the ticker, so they were just writing random things not in earnest and that comment appeared.

“So apologies if you saw that and you were offended and you’re a fan of Manchester United.”

An official BBC statement added: “There was a technical glitch during training with our test ticker, which rolled over to live programming for a few seconds.

“We apologised for any offence caused on air.”

VIDEO: presenter Anita McVeigh apologises for text that appeared on the ticker earlier in the morning. TX DATE: 24th May 2022. COPYRIGHT: BBC.

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Tags: BBC, BBC News Channel

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