Drunk and in charge of a TV station

Alt TV, an Auckland television station where the couch potatoes make shows instead of watch them, was today convicted by the Government watchdog, the Broadcast Standards Authority, for breaching quite a few standards, the worst of which was to broadcast a scroll of SMS text messages featuring a stream of bad words. I'll spear you the details but check the decision for the unvarnished version.

"The Authority notes that its survey of public opinion disclosed that the words “cunt” and “nigger” were the two most unacceptable words in the list presented to those people surveyed. The word “cock” was also the sixth most unacceptable word to those surveyed."

The Alt TV boys were also negligent of: replying to the complainant (a definitive no no in broadcast land, you have to be polite to your viewers and it does piss off the BSA) and not having a recording of the programme (the offensive texts ran for 5 hours in the afternoon on a public holiday).
But what made me laugh was their excuse for not having proper moderation of the texts that made it to air: the guy they hired was "intoxicated". Now a gossip columnist is reporting that Alt TV is taking the guy to court to recover their $5,000 fine they copped from the BSA (on top of being taken off air for 5 hours next Monday). That's just lamely shifting the blame. Shame on Alt TV for not standing up for its drinking employees in front of and behind the cameras and at the controls. I always thought it was a necessary skill to have to work there: their shows always seem to be like a giant continous on-air party.