All Stories FeedACMA: Ban celebrities from kids’ ads
ACMA is recommending celebrities and licensed characters be restricted from endorsing products during children’s television viewing. If successful the move would also prevent “popular personalities” from promoting products immediately before, during and after children’s (C) and preschool (P) television.
But ACMA is not recommending any changes to ban food or beverage advertising to children. The body has drawn a line in the sand on its role to judge what is and isn’t a determining factor in healthy food.
“ACMA is not a health advisory body,” said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman.
“ACMA has formed the view that restricting food and beverage advertising, particularly without a tool to identify high fat, salt, sugar (HFSS) products, would be a blunt form of regulatory intervention, with significant cost to the commercial television sector and uncertain national benefits. Such restrictions would also prevent healthy food and beverage products from being advertised.”
Other recommendations include more flexibility to commercial networks for “block programming for children.
Each commercial television licensee is currently required to show 260 hours of C material and 130 hours of P material each year. Half of the C material must be first release Australian content, while all P material must be Australian. Australia is unique in the world in mandating quotas for children’s programs on free-to-air television.
“The draft standards are designed to ensure that Australian children continue to be catered for in free-to-air television programming and to protect children from material that may be harmful to them. This is a particularly important, high profile issue and we would expect, and welcome, robust commentary.”
The new Children’s Television Standards are expected to be finalised in early 2009. The closing date for comments is 17 October 2008.
Source: ACMA
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