A BBC News presenter was caught giving the middle finger to the world Wednesday during a live television broadcast.
The obscene gesture came just hours before BBC decided to hike their licence fee by just over £10, meaning British people will have to pay £169 a year to access the service they already fund with their taxes, according to The Sun.
Maryam Moshiri was sitting at her broadcast desk when she made the move and appeared to be joking with bosses behind the scenes when she flashed the rude sign to camera.
The mortifying blunder occurred just as the BBC show came on air meaning viewers were greeted with the insult.
Moshiri, 46, one of the network’s chief presenters, appeared panicked when she realised she was live and scrambled to continue the bulletin while composing herself.
She swiftly said: “Live from London, this is BBC News.”
The awkward incident occurred on the world feed of BBC News at 12 noon UK time.
The channel in the UK was showing Prime Minister’s Questions from Westminster, with some of the headlines relating to that.
Maryam later issued an apology over the mistake.
Her gesture came on the same day it was revealed the BBC licence fee will likely rise by just over £10 next year as the government reduces the planned increase due to the pressure of the cost of living, according to reports.
The issue of UK taxpayers having to pay to access a service they already fund has long been problematic for governments of all sides with calls made to defund the BBC in its entirety, as Breitbart News reported.
For the past two years the licence fee has been frozen at £159 but it was previously agreed it would rise in line with inflation after April 2024, which would see it increase by nine percent – or £15 – to £173.30.
The Sun newspaper reports ministers have pressed the corporation to settle in line with September’s consumer prices index (CPI) rate of inflation of 6.7 percent which would instead bring it up by £10.65 to £169.65 per year.
The BBC’s funding dropped from £3.8billion to £3.74billion in the last year with the number of viewers paying for the licence fee plummeting by 500,000 to 24.3 million.
Bosses blamed competition from streaming giants such as Netflix and newcomers like GB News for the decline.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer is expected to make an announcement on the licence fee in the Commons on Thursday.