BBC Weather Forecast Tells Viewers to Expect ‘Nazi Ghosts’
Image by Getty
By Sam Kestenbaum September 16, 2016
A BBC weather forecast in Wales recently told viewers that they could expect to encounter some “Nazi ghosts” along with a cold front in the days ahead.
The subtitling of the forecast delivered by the BBC Wales presenter Sue Charles was supposed to read the “North Sea coast.” But a glitch in the automatic subtitling mis-transcribed the phrase as “Nazi ghosts.”
Viewers picked up on the snafu quickly. “For a moment you might have thought the Nazis had come back from beyond the grave to invade the country from the North Sea,” one quipped, according to the Daily Mail.
The forecast was filmed in Llandaff, Cardiff. A BBC employee told the Daily Mail that it was a problem of automation and not a human error. “Our auto subtitling automatically transcribes the words it hears.”
Every once in a while, the employee said, “there will be the odd blooper and this was one of them.”
This wasn’t the first time the station encountered some technical difficulties.
In 2002, one broadcaster asked for a “moment of violence” during the Queen mother’s funeral.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
