Ofcom to investigate ITV over ArmA gaffe

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 10 October, 2011

Broadcaster in trouble over "human error".

UK media regulator Ofcom will investigate ITV after it used footage taken from ArmA 2 in a documentary and claimed it was an 1988 IRA film.

Ofcom received 25 complaints after the ITV documentary mistakenly labelled footage from ArmA 2.

ITV apologised over the incident, which it blamed on "an unfortunate case of human error".

After ArmA 2 fans spotted the extraordinary gaffe, the documentary, Exposure: Gaddafi, was pulled from ITV's online catch-up service ITV Player.

"The events featured in Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA were genuine but it would appear that during the editing process the correct clip of the 1988 incident was not selected and other footage was mistakenly included in the film by producers," ITV said in a statement. "This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologise."

The Guardian reports Ofcom's investigation into ITV will determine whether the incident constituted a breach of its broadcasting code.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Gearskin #1 8 months ago

    It would have been far better if the clip was from Mario Land 2, and the commentary talked about Gaddafi's short lived obsession with blondes and mushrooms.

  • bad09 #2 8 months ago

    They better check out Rogue Traders to, the other day they showed a plumber who instead of unblocking your loo, sneaks about the house eating mushrooms and jumping on the pet turtle.....

  • Gearskin #3 8 months ago

    I wonder if AmA 2 advertising now carries the tagline "As Seen on ITV" ?

  • JoeGBallad #4 8 months ago

    It's a bizarre cock-up. The editing process is a long and tedious one, with no fewer than 5 or 6 people all required to view a programme in it's entirety before picture lock, where it then moves onto a whole other editor for colour grading. The offline editor will have repeatedly viewed every second dozens of times, and if the budget was fairly ok a producer will have been sitting in most edit sessions.

  • towser #5 8 months ago

    Oh dear - wonder if ITV are now thinking "ArmA getting outta here!"



    Sorry!

  • President_Weasel #6 8 months ago

    That sounds like a desperate bullshit answer: "there's real footage but we put the computer game footage in by accident". Show us the real footage then, shouldn't be difficult.

  • dadrester #7 8 months ago

    What JoeGBallad said. I wonder if the ArmA publishers could do ITV for copyright breach. You know that whole "no part of this... may be reproduced, transmitted... Yadda yadda"?

  • dsmx #8 8 months ago

    ARMA 2 has good graphics but it still doesn't look like real life footage, there is simply no way there could of been this much human error at all the stages of editing for this to slip through accidentally. Which leaves me thinking that this was a cheap attempt at creating controversy and thus ratings, and I hope to god that OFCOM slap them with something more than a fine.

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #9 8 months ago

    They tried it on, and got caught. Cheeky fuckers.

  • Dave52 #10 8 months ago

    Still waiting for ITV to post the re-edited version of the show with the actual IRA footage.

    If they fail to do that then they obviously were hoping to fool the general public with fake footage.

  • rudedudejude #11 8 months ago

    Love that weapon change!!!

  • escalinci #12 8 months ago

    I recently did some work experience at the beeb on a documentaries unit, they were incredibly careful about where archive footage had come from, to the extent that they wouldn't give it to the editors if it wasn't 100% cleared, even if it was probably a sure thing. And as Joe said, it goes through a lot of hands.

    I might expect this from a tiny production company doing one of these shockumentaries, but apparently this was in-house. Bad.

  • Ryze #13 8 months ago

    Idiots.

    :)

  • retr0gamer #14 8 months ago

    The grain filter they put over the footage to make it seem real was particularly damning. Seemed deliberate.

  • cardboardMonster #15 8 months ago

    Interesting definition of human error - I can't imagine any situation where videogame footage would be muddled up with real life. That said, it would explain Andy Townsend's worldwide soccer 98 style ramblings on ITV...

  • Dave #16 8 months ago

    Does sound like something done deliberately. Like other said, it goes through a lot of hands and it can't seem possible that not one of those hands can spot the difference between reality and game graphics. Maybe it's an ArmA 2 advertising ploy?

  • DisneyJon #17 8 months ago

    So they just happened to have Arm AII footage to hand and somehow didnt notice it was a videogame.......

  • superdelphinus #18 8 months ago

    How did this happen? Pulling clips off of YouTube against the backdrop of impending deadlines?

  • self_titled #19 8 months ago

    View it here guys;
    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQuglSbXeVo
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQuglSbXeVo
    [/link]

    How ITV thought they'd get away with that is beyond me! Completely deliberate in my opinion.

  • homerbert #20 8 months ago

    The weird thing is that they'd have been in the clear if they'd just said it was a reconstruction. Even the much stricter BBC guidelines allow for that sort of thing, as long as you stylise the footage. When caught, they should have just said they meant it as a stylised reconstruction and are sorry if they weren't clear enough on it. Instead, they bullshitted about using the wrong clip when as @JoeGBallad points out, just isn't how programme making works.

  • StooMonster #21 8 months ago

    The "human error" was the assumption they would not be caught.

  • Futaba #22 8 months ago

    Pretty sure ITV have also used Silent Hill 2 music before without crediting or buying it. It was on an afternoon holiday show I was half-watching a few years ago, suddenly I started paying attention when I heard an awfully familiar song playing in the background. I'm convinced it was a track from SH2's OST (I had it on my MP3 player around the time) but there's no way I'll find out for sure now. If it was, they probably thought there was a 0% chance of anyone watching that would recognise it.

    This comment isn't a joke or wind-up at all, by the way.

    Edited by Futaba at 11/10/11 @ 01:26

  • TagemandBagem #23 8 months ago

    The real footage they were supposed to show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz-o5_tn70E

  • MikkyX #24 8 months ago

    I'm looking forward to their Euro 2012 highlights - which will actually be recreations created using the official game.

  • Freek #25 8 months ago

    It's not actually a case of them deliberatly using ArmA as an animation tool to fool the public. The footage was from Youtube and not direct feed but filmed from a monitor screen, wich makes it look verry 80s. And there was no mention of it being a game in the discription.

    Poor, lazy research and sloppy editing, sure, but there is no grand conspiracy here, just incompetence.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJDeipvpjGQ
    Edited by Freek at 11/10/11 @ 11:41