Audience indexing: identification of television programmes likely to appeal to children and young people

1 This guidance note is designed to assist in the correct scheduling of those advertisements with a timing restriction requiring a separation from programmes of particular interest to children and young people. It indicates the practical measures broadcasters and sales houses must take to ensure that such programming is correctly identified.

2 The specific advertising scheduling restrictions are primarily detailed in Rule 4.2.1 of the BCAP Rules on the Scheduling of Television Advertising but useful guidance can be found in the notes to rule 7.3.7 of the BCAP Television Advertising Standards Code.

Products affected

3 Advertisements for alcoholic drinks, bingo, certain religious matter and for slimming products, treatments or establishments must not be advertised in or adjacent to children’s programmes or programmes commissioned for, principally directed at or likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18. 

4 Advertisements for lotteries and pools are subject to the same restriction, save that the age threshold is, for legal reasons, 16.

5 Advertisements for female sanitary protection products and for food or drink products that are assessed as high in fat, salt or sugar in accordance with the nutrient profiling scheme published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on 6 December 2005 are subject to the same restriction, save that the age threshold is 10.

Programmes affected

6 The ASA will ordinarily regard a programme as having ‘particular appeal’ to the relevant age range if audience measurement shows that it is likely to be relatively more popular with that age range than for the relevant viewing population as a whole, for example an analogue viewing population or a digital terrestrial viewing population.

7 For products with a scheduling restriction of 16 or 18, the ASA will normally regard the restriction as relevant to any programme where the 10 to 15 audience, indexed against all individuals that make up the relevant comparator audience (e.g. an-all homes audience or a multi-channel homes audience), produces an index of 120 or more.  Licensees should assume that an index of 120 or more will automatically bring the programme within the scope of the restriction.  If the restriction is not to apply to programmes at or beyond an index of 120 the ASA must be satisfied that the context of the programme justifies such an interpretation (eg if the high proportion of younger viewers is clearly not directly associated with the nature of the programme, such as a general news programme obviously not targeted at younger viewers). BCAP believes it unlikely that many programmes achieving a 120 or higher 10 to 15 index will not attract the scheduling restriction.

8 For sanitary protection products and food or drink products that are assessed as high in fat, salt or sugar in accordance with the nutrient profiling scheme published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on 6 December 2005, the ASA will normally regard the restriction relevant to any programme where the 4 to 15 audience against the relevant comparator audience produces an index higher than 120.

9 The ASA and BCAP recognise that, for certain channels or programmes, for example if the audience is small or the profile uncertain, the verifiable audience data available might not be adequate to apply the index criteria referred to in paragraphs six, seven and eight in an accurate or meaningful manner. In those circumstances, licensees will be expected to be able to demonstrate the application of the spirit and intention of the rule based on such hard audience information as is available to them and a knowledge of their audience profiles.

10 Channels devoted to children's programmes, or where the generality of the programme content might reasonably be expected to be of particular appeal to children, will be unlikely to be able to carry at any time advertising requiring a separation from programmes of interest to children and young people. For the avoidance of doubt, note also that advertising with ‘post 7.30 pm’ and ‘post 9pm’ etc timing restrictions may not be scheduled in or around programmes of interest to children.

11 Nothing in this Guidance Note removes the need for all licensees to take into account, for the purposes of appropriate and sensitive scheduling, all characteristics of a programme in addition to the viewing index.

Monitoring

12 The BCAP Executive may conduct monitoring to identify possible breaches of the above restrictions and will follow up, as necessary, with the licensees concerned.

Updated March 2007