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Legislation: FAU reaction to Ofcom
FAU reacts to Ofcom
The Food Advertising Unit today gave a mixed response to Ofcom's decision on new restrictions on food and soft drink advertising to children, mirroring that of the AA in a story also posted on his site.
The industry accepts that further advertising restrictions on food and soft drink around children's programming and targeted directly at primary school children are important and itself proposes a tough but proportionate ‘option 4'. However, it has long argued that Ofcom should base its final decision on the evidence, which shows that advertising only has a modest effect on children's food preferences.
Responding to the volume and scheduling restrictions for HFSS products, which Ofcom now intends to extend to all children up to 16, as opposed to younger children aged under 9, Sue Eustace, Director of Public Affairs, said:
"Ofcom has moved the goal-posts from its original regulatory objective in March, which was based on extensive research it had carried out, by extending volume and scheduling restrictions to programmes of direct appeal to under 16s, thus intruding into adult airtime. We fear there could be a knock-on effect on levels of investment in high-quality UK-produced programming".
However the FAU today welcomed Ofcom's acceptance of the industry's tough content proposals, which would prohibit the use of licensed characters, celebrities, promotional offers and nutritional claims. It also welcomed Ofcom's agreement that their continued focus should be on targeting primary school children.
The FAU also welcomed Ofcom's continued rejection of the pre-9pm watershed ban demanded by campaign groups as being disproportionate in the balance between economic impact and social benefit.
Suzanne Edmond, Public Affairs Manager, said:
"The industry is disappointed that Ofcom, as an independent and evidence-based regulator, appears to have been compromised by an orchestrated campaign from consumerist organisations which has created significant media and political pressures."
"This debate has been conditioned by emotive language used by campaign groups about ‘junk foods' and misses the real issues which are about bad diets and inactive lifestyles."
17 November 2006