Ofcom manage to clear Labour government on political advertising charge - just!

Posted by TonyN on 14/10/2010 at 11:18 am TV Adverts 9 Responses »
Oct 142010

Readers of this blog, and many others, sent complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority a year ago when the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Bedtime Story climate change advertisements appeared on TV and in the print media. This resulted in two of the print media advertisements being banned on the grounds that they were misleading, and a good deal of adverse publicity for the politicians when complaints reached record numbers.

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(If the video viewer does not appear on your computer then use this link)

However the ASA only dealt with some aspects of these complaints. There were 537 people who were concerned that the Bedtime Story video, which appeared repeatedly in slots on prime-time television, amounted to political advertising. This is banned in the UK under the Communications Act 2003 and is a matter for the broadcasting regulator Ofcom, and not the ASA.

We were all informed by the ASA that complaints falling into this category would be referred to Ofcom and that:

When both bodies have concluded their investigations we plan to notify complainants of bout our and Ofcom’s decisions, and we will write to you again at that point.

Things didn’t work out quite that way. The ASA published their decision back in March, but Ofcom has only managed to do so this week. Having read what they have to say (Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin No 167 p20-28) one might reasonably wonder what has taken them so long. Continue reading »

The DECC climate ads and a rather strange opinion poll

Posted by TonyN on 19/04/2010 at 9:15 pm TV Adverts 24 Responses »
Apr 192010

The press release that launched the controversial Act on Co2 ‘Bedtime Story’ adverts cites a specially commissioned YouGov opinion poll. As this campaign was aimed specifically at climate sceptics I thought it might be worth seeing, so I made an FOIA application to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for a copy, together with any explanatory material and analysis relating to it that they might hold.

I wasn’t the only person who was curious about that survey. A lecturer in Science Communication at Imperial College, London called Alice Bell – who also runs a very nice blog  and is definitely not a climate sceptic– also contacted the DECC and asked if she could see a copy of the poll results. After all, the DECC’s press release described the survey as ‘Research published today by the Department of Energy and Climate Change ….’, and then dwelt at length on the disgraceful level of scepticism about AGW that this revealed. As published research, how could this possibly be a secret?
Here is what the DECC told Alice: Continue reading »

ASA Bans Government Climate Change Ads

Posted by TonyN on 16/03/2010 at 9:59 pm TV Adverts 30 Responses »
Mar 162010

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned two of Ed Milliband’s Department of Energy and Climate Change advertisements after they received over 900 complaints about the £6m press and TV campaign aimed at global warming sceptics.

A DECC press release announcing the campaign said that:

…. the Government is today confronting the public with the reality and the consequences [of global warming]. The Government wants to educate people on the dangers of climate change and today launches its first ever direct public information announcement confirming the existence of climate change and its man-made origin.
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn114/pn114.aspx

But the ASA say that, ‘the claims [that] “Extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heatwaves will become more frequent and intense”‘ and ‘”… extreme weather conditions such as flooding heat waves and storms will become more frequent and intense” should have been phrased more tentatively.’ They found that there had been a breach of three sections of the Committee of Advertising Practice Code dealing with substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims. The report says that the advertisements ‘should not appear again in their current form’.

The campaign was launched in October 2009 and, as well as four press adverts, included a TV and cinema ad showing a father reading his young daughter a bedtime story. This depicts distressed farm animals and weeping rabbits in a drought-stricken landscape, and then a flooded town with people clinging to the rooftops and a dog drowning. The voice-over explaines, “There was once a land where the weather was very very strange. There were awful heat waves in some parts and in others terrible storms and floods. Scientists said it was being caused by too much C02, which went up into the sky when the grown-ups used energy. They said the C02 was getting dangerous, its effects were happening faster than they had thought. Some places could even disappear under the sea and it was the children of the land who would have to live with the horrible consequences.’ Continue reading »

The ASA attempts to wrap up a ‘Bedtime Story'. Sssh! It's a secret.

Posted by TonyN on 11/03/2010 at 1:52 pm TV Adverts 6 Responses »
Mar 112010

I assume that I am not the only person to have received a  fourteen-and-a-half page missive from the ASA this morning. It will probably be this evening before I get round to more than the quick glance I have given it so far. If anyone wants to comment then this is the place to do so.

The ASA provides for a further review procedure;

Can decisions be appealed?

In certain circumstances, advertising parties or complainants
can request a review of a ruling. Both sides have 21 days
from when they were told the decision to ask the Independent
Reviewer of ASA Adjudications to review the case. But they
must be able to establish that a substantial flaw of process
or adjudication is apparent, or show that additional relevant
evidence is available. If the Reviewer accepts a request for
a review he can ask the ASA Council to reconsider its ruling.
More information about the Independent Review procedure
can be found in the codes.

http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/Dealing-with-complaints/~/media/Files/ASA/Misc/Advs%20Leaflet%20Jun09.ashx

Note the time limit.

Hush, Hush! The Advertising Standards Authority is Investigating

Posted by TonyN on 11/01/2010 at 7:12 pm TV Adverts 11 Responses »
Jan 112010

An ‘Investigations Executive’ at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) wrote to me the day before the Climategate scandal broke.  Although the content of her letter was surprising, to put it mildly, subsequent events rather overshadowed it. Publication of the Climatic Research Unit’s emails, the collapse of the Copenhagen climate summit, and the lethargy of the Christmas holidays have postponed responding to the ASA’s letter.

Before I go any further, it is worth pointing out that the ASA is not a statutory body; it is not even an ‘authority’ in any accepted meaning of the term. It has no legal powers and nor is it charged by government with the duty of enforcing legislation. Quite why the word ‘Authority’ appears in its title is a mystery. Its remit extends no further than the advertising industry of which it is a part.

The ASA was founded in 1961 by the advertising industry as a means of self-regulating and of avoiding government regulation.  Funding is provided by a levy on advertisers. There are some interesting notes on the ASA’s history here. These mentions that, quite properly, the ASA operates under a chairman who has no connection with the advertising industry. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

So what did the ASA have to say in their letter? Well telling you is a bit of a problem because it’s all a terribly big secret. In fact, come to think of it, even telling you that I have received a letter from them would seem to be a terribly big secret, in their eyes at least. Just mentioning that there has been a letter I mean.  Perhaps I should really be pretending that none of this has ever happened.

Contributors to Harmless Sky who made complaints to the ASA may remember that we all received an acknowledgement from them which ended, ‘Please treat all correspondence as confidential until such time as a decision is published on our website’. This seemed a bit silly to me.

So far as I remember there were over 800 complaints to the ASA about the government adverts. Presumably each and every one of the complainants got the same letter, and this included the request for ‘confidentiality’. I’ve always believed that the only kind of secret that stays that way is one that you don’t share with anyone.

But of course such a request for confidentiality does beg a very obvious question; why is it being made?

I could think of no answer to that, so I thought little more about the matter. Normally, if someone wants to impart information on condition that it is confidential they seek your agreement first. Telling you something,and then saying that, by the way, ‘this is confidential’, is rather pointless, more particularly so when you are telling several hundred other people the same thing. And anyway, what possible justification could there be for trying to keep the very mundane information from the ASA that has appeared on this blog secret?

From a purely practical point of view, I could think of no sensible reason to make the request in the first place, or at least no reason that would reflect well on the ASA. Since I have been running this blog I have had dealings with a couple of proper regulators – Ofcom and The Information Commissioner who do have statutory powers – and neither of them have made such a request. Why should the ASA  do so?

The first requirement of a regulator is that the processes they employ in reaching decisions should be absolutely transparent, otherwise how does the public know that they are competent, impartial, and that they have applied the correct procedures and criteria in order to reach a equitable decision?  A secretive regulator is hardly likely to be a credible regulator.

In the end I decided that the ASA were probably just a bit self-important and unprofessional, and adjusted my expectations of what all those 800 complaints might achieve accordingly. That was until I received the letter that I mentioned at the beginning of this post: Continue reading »

Ofcom to investigate government's ‘dodgy' climate adverts

Posted by TonyN on 30/10/2009 at 7:48 pm The Climate, TV Adverts 70 Responses »
Oct 302009

Last week it became clear that the Advertising Standards Authority had launched an inquiry into the Government’s £6m TV advertising campaign aimed at climate change sceptics. Now it appears that the UK broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, will also investigate complaints that the advert is politically motivated and therefore breeches the ban on broadcasting political adverts. They would seem to have good reason for deciding to do so.

This is what the advert tells viewers about climate change:

(If the video viewer does not appear on your computer then use this link)

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So far, the ASA has received over 650 complaints and rising. That score ranks with the most complained about advert of 2008, which attracted 840 complaints. According to a letter that I received from the ASA this morning the following points will be investigated: Continue reading »

Government's £6m advertising campaign targets sceptics

Posted by TonyN on 15/10/2009 at 11:21 am The Climate, TV Adverts 130 Responses »
Oct 152009

From the TIMESONLINE website:

Climate change sceptics are to be targeted in a hard-hitting government advertising campaign that will be the first to state unequivocally that Man is causing global warming and endangering life on Earth.

The £6 million campaign, which begins tonight in the prime ITV1 slot during Coronation Street, is a direct response to government research showing that more than half the population think that climate change will have no effect on them.

Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.

The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of “a very very strange” world with “horrible consequences” for today’s children.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6867046.ece

You can also watch the advert using the link above to the TIMESONLINE website

Some  Harmless Sky readers have made complaints about the advertisement and I have started this thread because there is obviously going to be a lot of discussion about how the regulators react.

Alex Cull’s complaint can be found here

The full text of Robin Guenier’s complaint is here

Robin has also written to his MP, Peter Lilley, who was the only member of the House of Commons to speak out strongly against the Climate Bill.

I have received the following updates form Robin. Things seem to be moving very rapidly.

14/10/2009 16:13

I called Karen Harms [at the ASA] to discuss this. My fear was that, by turning this into a “political” issue the ASA might wash its hands of the affair & simply dump it on Ofcom – who, in turn, would prevaricate as they have with you, even deciding in the end that it isn’t political after all. But her line was busy & I left a voicemail. Then she called me, but I was on another important call &, this time, I missed her. However, she sent me an email with more detail which, to some extent, allays my fears. In my complaint, I cited ASA’s TV Code section 4 (d) [it’s interesting that they’ve already considered my complaint in some depth to get down to this detail!] – Section 4 is about “Political and Controversial Issues” and 4 (d) says that “No advertisement may show partiality as respects matters of political or industrial controversy or relating to current public policy”. That seems to distinguish “current public policy” from “political controversy” and I was concerned with the former not the latter.  She now (her latest email) relies on a note to Section 4 that says (para 2) “The term ‘political’ here is used in a wider sense than ‘party political’ – e.g. “campaigning for the purpose of influencing legislation or executive action …” and goes on to say (para 3) “The … investigation of complaints in relation to political advertising … remains a matter for Ofcom.”

She is (per her latest email) relying on that to say the 4 (d) part of my complaint is a matter for Ofcom not the ASA. Essentially that meets my concern – I refer to about 16 other sections of the Code and they stay with the ASA so my “dumping” fear is unfounded. But I’m unsure about 4 (d) anyway – I’m talking about “partiality” re “current public policy” and that, if I read ASA’s Code correctly, is not a “political” matter (see above) – unless they argue that the ad is designed to “influence” “executive action”. Why would the Government wish to influence its own action.

Anyway, I called her to discuss all this. And, once again, had to leave a voicemail – asking her to call me back. I’m waiting.

14/10/2009  16:33

I’ve now spoken to Karen. She was very helpful. She listened to my interpretation of their Section 4 and understood my points, saying she wasn’t herself able to agree or disagree with me although she appreciated my logic on the matter. She said, therefore, that she would contact Ofcom herself and get their view and contact me when she had done this. In the meantime, she confirmed that ASA (i.e. Karen) would be considering my overall complaint with specific reference to my other 16 Section references, noting that this would not preclude her from referring also to other relevant Sections that I might have missed.

I.E. she could hardly have been more helpful.
This seems, so far, to be moving remarkably quickly. I’ll keep you posted.

I am also moving relevant comments to this thread from the New Statesman thread. The problems with references to comment numbers are unavoidable I’m afraid.

UPDATE: It’s proved impossible to move the comments because the vast size of the NS thread makes the software I use fall over. If you want to refer to them you can create links by right-clicking on the comment number, selecting ‘link location’ and then pasting in a link in the usual way.

Discussion of the adverts on the NS thead starts here

Updates: 16/10/2009

If, after viewing the advert, you want to complain about it, then you can do so at the Advertising Standards Authority here:

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

It was broadcast again on Thursday 16th October 2009  on ITV1 between 8.00 – 8.30 PM.

There is discussion of the government’s reaction to a flood of complaints about the advert at The Guardian website here.

Update 18/10/2009:

 Robin has received another response from the ASA. See his comment here.

Update 24/10/2009:

You can sign a petition against the government’s TV climate change adverts on the Downing Street website here:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/climate-ad/sign

 TonyB, A regular contributor here, has written a paper that adds  very interesting context to the governmen’s TV advertising campain. It can be found at Air Vent here:

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/crossing-the-rubicon-an-advert-to-change-hearts-and-minds/

This has also been picked up by WattsUpWithThat as well.

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