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Australian Children's television standards remain unchanged
Date: 02/09/2009
On 1 September, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) released the final report of the ‘Review of the Children's Television Standards (CTS) 2005.' With regard to food advertising to children, the ACMA "decided not to impose any additional requirements on industry with regard to food and beverage advertising."
In its report, ACMA states the following reasons for this decision:
- "The Brand literature found that factors influencing childhood obesity and overweight are complex. Public health literature has identified a range of factors including hereditary, social, cultural and environmental factors [...] the relative contribution of advertising to childhood obesity is difficult to quantify and a causal relationship between these may not be possible to determine."
- "The ACMA has decided that the existing definition of child as "people younger than 14 years of age" should be retained as "the arguments of health and food lobby groups to broaden the definition of children to include older teenagers are not appropriate in the broadcasting context."
- "ACMA undertook economic modelling to estimate the costs of a range of options for restricting advertising of foods and beverages in the commercial free-to-air broadcasting sector [...] On the basis of Access Economics data, the ACMA found that there would be a significant impact on broadcaster revenue and profitability."
- "The cost of a general ban on food and beverage advertising on the commercial television industry would remain significant. Such a ban could potentially dampen future industry investment, may have an impact on programming quality and would require a reduction in obesity related costs of as much as 5.21 per cent across the economy to outweigh costs to broadcasters."
- "Without greater confidence that such bans would have a direct and real benefit, the ACMA remains of the view that they would be a blunt regulatory intervention with uncertain results and significant costs to the sector"
- "The ACMA reinforces the important role industry can play in a co-regulatory environment in responding directly to address community concerns in relation to food and beverage advertising to children."
- "The ACMA welcomes recent initiatives announced by industry and will monitor these initiatives over the next 12 months to gauge their effectiveness." [The Austrialian Pledge Programme and QSR initiatives in particular]
In addition to its general ruling on advertising, the ACMA strengthened the provisions relating to popular characters shown in ‘C Periods' [C band means the following periods of time: (a) 7.00am to 8.30am Monday to Friday; (b) 4.00pm to 8.30pm Monday to Friday; (c) 7.00am to 8.30pm Saturday, Sunday and school holidays]. The new CTS will come into force on 1 January 2010.
Separately, the Australian Department of Health and Ageing published a strategy report developed by the Federal Government's National Preventative Health Taskforce on how Australia can meet its target of becoming the world's healthiest country by 2020, including recommendations to reduce children's exposure to TV advertising of HFSS foods before 9pm and plans to monitor the impact of an industry-regulated approach to advertising.
The report's recommendations for food and grocery manufacturers, first presented to the Federal Government in June 2009 and to be introduced between 2010 and 2013, would be addressed through strategic partnerships between Government, industry and the community.
