MTV has been fined £255,000 for breaking broadcast rules with persistent swearing before the watershed and an instance of homophobia and racism.

Ofcom recorded a list of breaches of its Broadcasting Code between June 2006 and September last year on TMF, MTV France, MTV UK (now MTV1) and MTV Hits.

Numerous viewers complained during the period, the regulator said, despite its warning MTV about previous breaches.

Severe swear words were found to have been used across the MTV-owned channels on several occasions from as early as 9am.

One viewer complained that racist and homophobic text messages, in French, were displayed on MTV France in a late-night programme called Belge Chat. They included the message "Immigrants are going to f**k your mother".

A TMF trailer for Totally Jodie Marsh, broadcast during the day, included the sentence: “I just don’t want you settling down with some f**king w**ker from a modelling agency."