@MarkGoldsmith Except that's not entirely true, Mark.
There's very little that you CAN'T say on UK TV under Ofcom broadcasting guidelines or standards, and most of the time it can only be adjudicated upon after broadcast.
The stuff that was cut in Season 9 about the royal family deaths, had nothing to do with the content being illegal or a breach of broadcasting guidelines. It was purely cut on the grounds of (supposed) taste and decency, because Sky wrongly thought the jokes were directly about the Queen and Prince Philip, when they weren't, and that UK audiences would probably find them offensive being broadcast so soon after their respective deaths, which most of L.W.T's viewers DIDN'T.
The actual jokes were NOT about the deaths, but about the TV coverage of the deaths, and almost certainly would not have broken Ofcom guidelines. Plus, Ofcom can only judge whether something is in breach, AFTER it is broadcast, not before, with almost no other exceptions. (The only one I know of, is if a broadcast could affect or impair a current legal trial, or would risk endangering UK security-wise, and thus Ofcom could then prevent a broadcast going ahead in that instance.)
The only part of your comment that is correct, was to do with the Brexit debate where John Oliver had an episode persuading UK viewers to NOT vote for Brexit, but it was broadcast later in the week, rather than before the vote took place, as broadcasting it before would have broken Ofcom rules. But from what I recall, it wasn't actually cut, just delayed by three days.
There was also one episode that featured content taken directly from the Houses Of Commons and that footage could not be broadcast, as Parliament doesn't allow any broadcast footage to be aired unless it's for legitimate news reporting - which (rightly or wrongly) L.W.T. doesn't count as.
The only other episode that couldn't be broadcast in the UK for censorship reasons was "Stupid Watergate II", which had a segment on why Parliamentary footage couldn't be used for fair criticism in other shows/media outlets, but because the law states no Parliamentary footage can ever be used outside of strict news reporting, the segment had to be cut in full, as all the edits would've rendered it impossible to follow.
In that one instance, Oliver does a segment replaced with Gilbert Gottfried in front of a black curtain saying that the rest of the show can't be seen in the UK because of the law. Gottfried then reads a restaurant review. But that is the only actual time I can think of, when the show was forced to be cut for legal reasons, which Sky had no control over.
I’m not aware of any other episodes that have been cut on the grounds of their content being (or potentially being) illegal that would breach Ofcom regulations.
But none of this excuses Sky choosing to make an edit when it doesn't legally need to do so. Considering the content Sky can and does broadcast, cutting something in L.W.T., a comedy news discussion show aimed at broad minded adults, seems to be a truly dumb thing to do, that will only backfire on Sky.
