Broadcasting: L!ve TV censured over bed scenes

The television industry watchdog has issued a formal warning to cable channel L!ve TV for broadcasting secretly-filmed footage of the former Conservative MP Piers Merchant in bed with his researcher Anna Cox. The Independent Television Commission said that secretly filmed material could only be used when it was clearly of important public interest. This was not true in the case of the Piers Merchant story because he had resigned his Beckenham seat six days before L!ve TV, which is owned by Mirror Group, a shareholder in The Independent, broadcast "lengthy and repeated" footage of the couple in bed.

-- Paul McCann, Media Correspondent