Ad description

A TV ad for a gambling service, coral.co.uk, broadcast nine times on Saturday 25 May between 6.42 am and 8.42 am during children’s programmes on Turner’s Cartoon Network and Boomerang channels. The ad opened with a voice-over which said, “This is Coral gaming, online and on mobile.” The ad then showed a visual of the Incredible Hulk, among other images. A voice-over and visual stated, “New players get a free £10 gaming bonus ... Play now [at] coral.co.uk.”

The ad was cleared by Clearcast with a restriction that it should not be broadcast in, or adjacent to, religious programmes, children’s programmes or programmes commissioned for, principally directed at or likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18 years, and with a presentation note which reminded broadcasters of the gambling industry’s voluntary agreement not to schedule gaming ads before 9 pm.

Issue

Seven viewers challenged whether the ad was suitable for broadcast on dedicated children’s channels.

Response

Turner Broadcasting System Europe Ltd (Turner) apologised unreservedly for the error that led to the ad being inadvertently and incorrectly scheduled on their children’s channels. They said that while it had never happened before, on this occasion a booking number was erroneously allocated to the ad which resulted in it being broadcast on their children’s channels. Turner said they were well aware of the requirements of the Code and of the restriction applied by Clearcast and that, if the correct entry number had been assigned to the ad, it would not have been scheduled incorrectly. Turner said they understood the gravity of the error and as soon as the problem was brought to their attention, the on-call duty manager acted to source and eradicate a repeat of the issue and they also subsequently re-checked all similar ads to ensure no inappropriate content had been broadcast. They were satisfied the error was a one-off and said the ad would not be broadcast again on their children’s channels. Turner said since the error, their transmission teams had prioritised a review of all processes and had evaluated the implementation of new technological solutions that imposed checks on all content regardless of how it was inputted into their system.

Coral Group Trading Ltd (Coral) said they were horrified that their ad was viewed on Turner’s children’s channels. They worked with their media agency and had an arrangement with Turner to air their ads on the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) channel post 9 pm. Coral said neither they nor their agency had booked advertising air time on children’s channels or during any other children’s programmes. Coral said after being notified of the error they instigated an investigation, notified the regulatory authorities in the UK and Gibraltar and, as a precaution, suspended all other Coral.co.uk ads due to be aired by Turner Broadcasting that weekend. Coral said they were fully aware of the importance of regulation and social responsibility regarding child protection and they regretted the ad was shown in children’s television programming. They emphasised that the scheduling of the broadcast was outside their control and they had no intention to air the ad during children’s channels.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was deeply concerned that an ad for a gambling service was broadcast at all on Turner’s children’s channels. We acknowledged Turner’s assurance that the situation had never arisen before and that they were taking steps to prevent the mistake being repeated. We accepted that Coral had taken all necessary steps to ensure their ad was scheduled appropriately and that, when submitting the ad to Turner, they had no further control over when it was broadcast. We also acknowledged Coral’s proactive approach to the issue once they were made aware of it.

The Broadcast Code strictly prohibits gambling ads in or adjacent to programmes commissioned for, principally directed at or likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18 years and we considered the failure to comply with this requirement to be a serious breach.

The ad breached BCAP Code rules  4.1 4.1 Advertisements must contain nothing that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18.  (Harm and offence) and  32.2.2 32.2.2 gambling except lotteries, football pools, equal-chance gaming (under a prize gaming permit or at a licensed family entertainment centre), prize gaming (at a non-licensed family entertainment centre or at a travelling fair) or Category D gaming machines (see rule 32.4)  (Scheduling of Television and Radio Advertisements, Under-18s).

Action

Because the ad had already been removed from broadcast on Turner’s children’s channels, we considered that no further action was necessary. We told Turner to ensure that it had failsafe processes and procedures in place to ensure that gambling ads were never broadcast in or adjacent to programmes commissioned for, principally directed at or likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18 years.

BCAP Code

4.1     32.2.2    


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