Channel 4 and UKTV aired ad for 15-rated sex addict comedy at inappropriate time, says ASA
Channel 4 and UKTV did not schedule TV ads for Thanks for Sharing, a 15-certificate film, appropriately to prevent under 15 year olds from seeing it, the ASA has ruled.
The ad for the film showed shots of two billboards featuring women in their underwear accompanied by a voice-over stating, "Life as a sex addict - it's hard." Further scenes showed a male character being caught filming up his female boss's skirt, and rubbing his groin against a woman on a subway train.
Another male character was shown on dates with a woman, followed by a scene in which she was seen approaching him seductively, wearing lingerie, and saying, "Hey baby, you wanna dance?" The voice-over stated "Thanks for Sharing."
The ad was seen on Channel 4 and E4+1 during or between episodes of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'The Big Bang Theory' at approximately 9:40 am, 11 am and 3:30 pm. It was shown on Watch TV during 'Masterchef Australia' between 7pm and 8pm.
The ASA received a total of five complaints, raising two issues: one of the issues questioned whether the ad was appropriately scheduled at a time when children might be watching and the other challenged whether the ad was offensive because it depicted non-consensual sex acts.
The latter issue was not upheld.
In its statement, Channel 4 said when setting out restrictions for broadcasting ads, it looked at previous audience indexing data for the same programmes on the same channel, during the same part of the day.
UKTV Interactive, which operated Watch TV said that Channel 4 managed all advertising across the UKTV network and had conducted a number of checks on audience data to ensure the ad was not scheduled in or around programmes likely to appeal to children.
After investigating the data provided by UKTV and Channel 4 the ASA said: “Because the audience data showed that Masterchef Australia was likely to appeal particularly to children aged 10‒15 years, we concluded the scheduling requirements arising from the product classification had not been met.”
Referring to Channel 4 it added: “We considered that, because the ad had been shown during ‘The Big Bang Theory’, which was of particular appeal to children aged 10‒15 in weekend timeslots between 11 am and 5 pm, it had not been scheduled in accordance with the 'ex-kids' scheduling restriction imposed by Clearcast.”
The ASA told Channel 4 to take more care with the scheduling of ads.