A breakfast time screening of Game of Thrones has left Sky in breach of Ofcom’s broadcast code after the Mandatory Daytime PIN (MDP) protection wasn’t enabled.
The episode of the fantasy drama was broadcast by Sky Atlantic at 07.35 on August 19, 2022. As the broadcast was before the 21.00 watershed Rule 1.24 of the Broadcasting Code requires the subscriber to access their PIN code before they are able to view the programme.
The episode, Prince of Winterfell, included multiple instances of offensive language, including “c**t”, “f**k” and “s**t”. It was broadcast for approximately 40 minutes before it was taken off air and replaced with pre- watershed content.
Sky said it “fully accepts strong content should not be broadcast before the watershed without the necessary mandatory PIN protection” and “sincerely apologise[d] to those customers who viewed this content” and added it “is never our intention to offend or upset our viewers”.
It told the regulator that the incident was due to an “unforeseeable software fault” caused by a system upgrade which caused “stability issues regarding [the] software used to implement PIN on Sky Q boxes”.
Although Sky’s monitoring systems said everything was running correctly, a member of the team noticed an irregularity, and as the stability of the PIN system could not be guaranteed, the show was pulled.
To prevent a recurrence of the issue Sky explained it made changes to the software system including reducing its data, making a considerable upgrade to its available memory and adding automated and manual checks.
