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Thursday, 31 January, 2002, 02:02 GMT
Watchdog raps Ant and Dec
![]() Slap Bang with Ant and Dec was on at prime time
TV presenters Ant and Dec have been censured by watchdogs for pretending to fire a gun at a soap actor during their Saturday evening show Slap Bang.
A viewer complaint was upheld after Dec Donnelly pretended to shoot Coronation Street star Bill Roache, who plays Ken Barlow, on the prime-time ITV entertainment show. The Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) agreed that it was unsuitable to show a gun at a time when a lot of children were watching.
The offending sequence came as part of a comedy scene in an episode broadcast in June 2001. Donnelly was seen conducting a light-hearted interview with Roache, but co-host Ant McPartlin kept interrupting him. 'Not real' Roache pretended to get increasingly annoyed by being referred to by his screen name, and stormed off with McPartlin - at which point Dec drew the plastic gun and shot him. "The gun in the scene was a plastic toy pistol and clearly not real," a spokesman for ITV said. "While we respect the viewers' concerns on gun crime, we did not believe the sketch represented a real life situation and this would have been recognised by the majority of viewers." But the BSC decided that it was wrong to portray the use of a gun in a show that was mainly watched by children and teenagers. Ratings "The panel considered the depiction of the firearm had been realistic and demonstrated how effective use of a gun could be in controlling situations," their ruling said. Ant and Dec have had hits with Saturday morning shows SM:tv and cd:uk as well as Pop Idol, which they host. Slap Bang was less of a success, with poor ratings and lukewarm reviews, but a new series is due later this year. Last year, the pair fell foul of the Independent Television Commission after showing partly-masked nudity on another tea-time entertainment programme, Ant & Dec's Secret Camera Show.
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