Good Taste, Decency and Offence to Public Feeling

9 Good Taste, Decency and Offence to Public Feeling

The Communications Act 2003, Sections 319(1)(a) and 325 require ASA and BCAP (exercising powers contracted out by Ofcom) to set and enforce standards to ensure that "generally accepted standards are applied to the content of television and radio services so as to provide adequate protection for members of the public from the inclusion in such services of offensive and harmful material".

Standards of taste are subjective and individual reactions can differ considerably. Each station is expected to exercise responsible judgements and to take account of the sensitivities of all sections of its audience when deciding on the acceptability or scheduling of advertisements (and see Rule 8 above). For example, advertisers may make a range of advertisements which are suitable for different listeners and moods. Where research on individual stations shows that a significant number of specific listeners, such as those aged below 16 years, are present at certain times, such as at breakfast or in daytime during school holidays, stations must schedule sensitive advertisements accordingly.

In particular:

a) offensive and profane language must be avoided;

b) salacious, violent or indecent themes, or sexual innuendo or stereotyping likely to cause serious or general offence, should be avoided;

c) references to minority groups should not be stereotypical, malicious, unkind or hurtful;

d) references to religious or political beliefs should not be offensive, deprecating or hurtful, and the use of religious themes and treatments by non-religious groups should be treated with extreme care;

e) those who have physical, sensory, intellectual or mental health disabilities should not be demeaned or ridiculed;

f) the handling of films, plays, music tracks or websites with salacious, violent or sexual themes and/or titles requires careful consideration. Audio clips should portray the productís true nature but clips containing bad language, sexual innuendo and/or gratuitous violence should normally be avoided;

g) humour should not be used to circumvent the intention of Code Rules.