Background
Rule 32.2.1 of The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (The BCAP Code) states that alcohol ads should not be shown in or around programmes commissioned for, principally targeted at or likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18 years.
In practice, programmes commissioned for or principally targeted at under-18s are identifiable by their content. Programmes likely to appeal particularly to under-18s are not so easy to identify.
Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) guidance recommends the use of audience indexing, a statistical tool, to determine the representation of children in relation to the audience as a whole. BCAP guidance states that an alcohol restriction should be applied in programmes where the 10- to 15-year-olds audience, indexed against the total audience of all individuals over four years old, produces an index of 120 or more. An index of 120 would mean that 10- to 15-year-olds are 20% over-represented in the programme audience compared to the audience as a whole.
Audience indexing can be used as a tool for forecasting prospective audiences using historical data. An index over 120, when looked at retrospectively, is not necessarily indicative of a breach of the Code. The test is whether the broadcaster used the predictive tools available to schedule advertising with reasonable thoroughness and care.
The ASA Compliance team received research data from Ofcom about television programmes that contained centre-break alcohol advertisements in Q4 2012. This research was based on Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) data for this period and showed ads where the 10- to 15-year-olds audience, indexed against the audience of individuals over four years old, produced an index of 120 or higher.
Ofcom commissioned this research as part of a review into children's exposure to alcohol advertising on television. Ofcom passed this information to the ASA to assess whether the data indicated breaches of Rule 32.2.1 of the BCAP Code. The ASA commissioned further data for February, March and April 2013.
Ad description
Episodes of the programme Mythbusters were broadcast on the Discovery, Discovery+1 and Quest channels throughout Q4 2012 and February, March, April 2013. The data indicated that the audience index for alcohol ads in these programmes exceeded the 120 limit in:
1. 14 episodes in Q4 2012 and 12 episodes in February, March, April 2013 on Discovery;
2. 16 episodes in Q4 2012 and four episodes in February, March, April 2013 on Discovery+1;
3. 10 episodes in Q4 2012 and six episodes in February, March, April 2013 on Quest.
Issue
The ASA Compliance team challenged whether it was appropriate to schedule alcohol ads in Mythbusters because the data indicated it was a programme likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18 years.
Response
Discovery Communications Europe Ltd (Discovery) said that they considered Mythbusters a science series produced for adults that was very clearly directed at audiences over the age of 18 years.
They stated that the 4- to 15-year-olds audience, indexed against all individuals in the all-homes audience, produced an index of 95 for the period October 2012 to April 2013, so the programme was never restricted. They said that only 35% of all breaks ended up with an index above 120 when measured using the 4- to 15-year-olds audience. Unless this figure was more than 50% the programme would not be restricted.
Ads on Discovery, Discovery+1 and Quest were sold and scheduled by a third-party company. The third-party’s scheduling procedures considered Mythbusters “standard programming”, which meant that a four-week rolling average of programme-break indices was used to determine whether the programme should be restricted. Of the 95 instances of alcohol ads being scheduled in the programme (in 62 programme transmissions) only six breaks were predicted by the third party as indexing over 120. The third party decided that this did not justify an alcohol restriction in these breaks because the overall series index for the period was 95 and thereby below the 120 threshold.
When asked why the third party calculated indices using the 4- to 15-year-olds audience rather than the 10- to 15-year-olds audience stated in the BCAP guidance, Discovery was told: that there was no trading demand for 10- to 15-year-olds audiences, it was not a BCAP Code requirement to index using 10- to 15-year-olds audiences and the scheduling software used would require additional development to report using 10- to 15-year-olds.
The third party took the view that measuring the 4- to 15-year-olds audience provided an index that adequately protected 10- to 15-year-olds in the same way the 10- to 15-year-olds parameter would. They said that although there was the potential for a degree of under-protection in teenage programming, the error range was not significant.
Discovery also expressed wider concerns about the way the BARB audience share was calculated for smaller channels, niche audiences and programmes with low audience levels. They said the third party considered that the audience figures were too low to provide reliable conclusions as to the exact composition and profile of the audience viewing a particular programme. Given the BARB panel size and the low audience figures for the programme, they considered that sampling errors were very large and the data could not be said to be robust. For this reason the third party aggregated data across the series so sampling error was reduced to a more reasonable level and meaningful conclusions could be made.
Assessment
The ASA considered that a science entertainment series such as Mythbusters, which according to the Discovery website aims to “uncover the truth behind popular myths and legends by mixing scientific method with gleeful curiosity and plain old-fashioned ingenuity to create a signature style of experimentation”, was likely to appeal to under-18s. We therefore considered that forecasting using audience indexing was the appropriate means for Discovery to determine whether the programme was likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18 years.
Upheld
The ASA was concerned that the BCAP guidance had not been followed. We considered that using a 4 to 15 index did not adequately protect 10- to 15-year-olds to the same extent that a 10 to 15 index would because the data showed that proportionately more 10- to 15-year-olds than 4- to 9-year-olds watched the series. This meant that the 4- to 15-based index was consistently lower than the 10- to 15-based index, which gave the misleading impression that the programme was not of likely appeal to audiences below the age of 18 years.
We also considered that aggregating comparable indexing data over similar time slots could be a reasonable practice when formulating data for forecasting purposes, particularly when audiences were low, and broadcasters needed to use the data and predictive tools available to schedule advertising with reasonable thoroughness and care. Although we acknowledged that in many instances the audience figures for the programme were low, we considered that the data showed patterns of alcohol ads being broadcast in programmes exceeding the 120 index in similar time slots on a number of occasions in Q4 2012 and February, March, April 2013, and that conclusions could be drawn from these patterns.
Furthermore, we considered that although the use of a four-week rolling average to determine an average series index may have been reasonable if the correct 10 to 15 index had have been used, it did not follow that it would have been reasonable to override restrictions in individual programmes forecasted to index above 120 because the series as a whole was forecasted to index below 120.
We were therefore concerned that alcohol ads were transmitted on six occasions where the predicted index was over 120 (using the 4 to 15 index). We considered it was not reasonable to override a restriction in programmes predicted as having an index above 120.
We were further concerned that Discovery considered a situation where 35% of programme breaks indexed above 120 did not merit an alcohol restriction. We considered that if a broadcaster predicted that an individual programme was likely to index above 120, they should have restricted this individual programme even if the series as a whole was predicted to index below 120.
The scheduling of alcohol advertisements in the Mythbusters series breached BCAP Code rule 32.2.1 32.2.1 alcoholic drinks containing 1.2% alcohol or more by volume (see rule 32.4.7) (Scheduling of Television and Radio Advertisements, Under-18s).
Action
We told Discovery to follow the BCAP Guidance Note 4 and use the 10 to 15 audience index for forecasting the likely appeal of a programme to audiences below the age of 18 years. We also told them not to broadcast alcohol ads in programmes predicted to exceed the 120 index.
