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The executive producer of Channel Nine's The Footy Show has apologised for a racist skit on Thursday night's show which he admits "went too far".
The NRL program was criticised by viewers after retired footballer Beau Ryan asked an Asian woman if she was planning to eat one of her dogs.
Viewers slammed the segment as racist on social media.
Beau Ryan grins after asking a woman if she was planning to eat one of her dogs. Photo: Channel Nine
On Friday morning, The Footy Show Executive Producer Glenn Pallister apologised for any offence caused, conceding the joke had been made at the woman's expense.
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"We apologise for any offence caused, the segment is a comedy one where we have fun with people, but not intentionally at their expense," Pallister said in a statement to Fairfax Media. "We clearly went too far on this occasion."
In 'Beau Knows', a regular segment presented by Beau Ryan, the retired footballer went to Wentworthville in Sydney's west to speak to locals.
The woman tells Ryan she owns the store and the dogs. Photo: Channel Nine
Midway through the segment, as he is walking up the street accompanied by a camera, he sees an Asian woman kneeling down to take a photo of dogs in the window of an optometrist.
Walking up behind her, he asks: "Picking out which one for dinner?"
As the woman begins to turn around, he grins at the camera and the studio audience begins to groan and clap.
The NRL Footy Show tweeted a clip of the interaction, which it deleted almost an hour later. Photo: Supplied
The woman stands up and Ryan asks "Oh, are they yours? Is this [business] yours?"
"Yes," the woman responds.
A nine-second-long video of the interaction was posted to The Footy Show Twitter account at 9.17pm on Thursday night.
Almost immediately, commenters branded the clip "utterly disgraceful", "inappropriate", "abhorrent" and "disappointing and racist".
The tweet was left on Twitter for almost an hour before it was taken down.
Many commenters linked the clip to a joke made by Sam Thaiday after Origin I on Wednesday night, that the game had been "a bit like losing your virginity".
Earlier in the segment, Ryan makes another joke about a man with Chinese heritage.
Approaching two men in the street, he says Wentworthville has "a couple of different cultures" and asks their nationalities. The first man responds that he is Lebanese, and the second man responds he is Chinese.
"Lebanese and Chinese, wouldn't have picked it," he says, looking at the camera once again.