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Ofcom Nestle Channel 5

Ofcom finds Live with Myleene in breach for promotion of Nestlé cereal

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

July 9, 2012 | 3 min read

Ofcom has found Channel 5’s Live with Myleene in breach of its code due to promotion of Nestlé cereals by Ben Shephard.

Shephard appeared on the show to discuss the benefits of a healthy breakfast, since he was running three marathons over the summer.

Ofcom found that approximately six of the eight minutes of the interview was spent discussing the benefits of eating a healthy breakfast, with references to Nestlé’s Battle of the Breakfasts advertising campaign which he was fronting, the website address of the site and the benefits of swapping to Nestlé.

One of his answers was: “Well as a rule I eat pretty healthily and I’ve always kept myself quite fit, but when I was approached by Nestlé to get involved with the Battle of the Breakfasts alongside Louise [Redknapp] and Sara [Cox], all of us have had experience of getting up first thing in the morning, like you do have to get up early and do a job. And there’s that time when you’re getting up in the morning and breakfast is all about convenience isn’t it?! When you’ve got kids to get out of the house, ready for school, you grab whatever you can.

“And I was absolutely guilty, particularly when I was working at GMTV, of taking what was on offer, which would be pastries, cakes, croissants, pain au chocolat – all the stuff that’s absolutely delicious and of course gives you that great energy buzz. But then I found massive, massive drops in energy, like slumps throughout the morning. And a bacon sandwich as well, I’m a huge sucker for a bacon sandwich.

“What we found when Juliet, who was our nutritionist, looked at the swaps that I could make, if I had some Cheerios or some Nestlé cereal, Shreddies for example, I was saving about 200 calories a day, and across a month [sic.] I was saving about 10 grams of fats and six grams of saturated fat a day. Across a month I was saving two days worth of calories which is just a remarkable amount, just by swapping for what was actually pretty convenient anyway with cereal.”

Channel 5 said that because the show was live, the team had ‘very little time’ to react, but Ofcom noted that presenter of the day Myleene Klass did nothing to move the discussion on.

The repeated mentions to Nestlé cereal was therefore found in breach of rules 9.4 and 9.5.

Ofcom Nestle Channel 5

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