'Bad taste' poll costs station $140,000

Fine is highest imposed on broadcaster, which airs public apology over survey

Commercial Radio was hit with a $140,000 penalty - the biggest imposed on a broadcaster - and forced to air a public apology yesterday for its hotly criticised poll on indecently assaulting a celebrity.

The station said it 'sincerely accepted' the ruling of the Broadcasting Authority, which was hailed by a media expert as 'serious, comprehensive and groundbreaking'.

The penalty followed 191 complaints about the poll, mounted by the popular programme So Fab, in which respondents were invited to choose the female artist they would most like to indecently assault.

The authority said the case was serious because the programme hosts, Sammy Leung Chi-kin and Kitty Yuen Siu-yee - who have been suspended for two months - were experienced and the poll was 'not a matter of inadvertence'. It directed the station to submit a report in three months on measures taken to improve monitoring system.

General manager Rita Chan Ching-han, who read the apology on the station's two FM Chinese-language channels and its AM English channel during its midday prime time slot, said the management accepted responsibility.

She said the station had set up two monitoring committees for the Chinese-language channels and would adopt much tighter monitoring. She said the two-month suspension of Leung and Yuen was enough. She did not say if other staff would be penalised.