Newstalk presenter censured for calling Susan Boyle a 'freak'

A COMPLAINT against Newstalk Breakfast Showpresenter Claire Byrne for calling singer Susan Boyle a "freak" and "not right in the head" has been upheld by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

In a finding published yesterday the authority said Ms Byrne’s comments were “inherently offensive”, “disrespectful” and “not editorially justified”.

Ms Byrne made the remarks on-air when she was speaking to presenter Tom Dunne, who was doing the morning programme that followed on from the Breakfast Show.

The offending item was broadcast on Monday, November 17th, after Jedward had been voted off X-Factor. Boyle had been a guest on the show.

While previewing his programme, Dunne and Ivan Yates, Byrne’s co-presenter, both said how good a singer Boyle was.

Byrne disagreed and said: “She annoys me. I can’t listen to her or watch her. She does my head in. The whole thing, she’s a freak show, she’s a freak . . . she’s not right in the head . . . it’s because she’s a freak that she’s up there.”

Newstalk claimed that Byrne's use of the word "freak" was in relation to the Britain Got Talentshow, which Boyle starred in, rather than to Boyle herself.

The BAI’s compliance committee disagreed. It stated that the language and manner of presentation was not appropriate, the other two presenters had done nothing to stop her and the comments were “likely to cause offence”.

The authority also found against Newstalk in response to a complaint that it had hosted a one-sided discussion on the Lisbon Treaty during a review of the Sunday papers' slot on the Wide Angleprogramme.

The BAI found that a discussion about the anti-Lisbon group Cóir should have involved somebody from the organisation.

It also upheld a complaint against an advertisement broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) in relation to an advertisement about its new register.

The advertisement gave the impression that only those who had registered with the RIAI were capable of acting as architects.

The authority also upheld three further complaints about TV3's controversial PlayTVlate-night game show.