Harmful advert fears addressed

Concerns about inappropriate adverts appearing on video-on-demand (VoD ) services have been addressed by a new law.

Providers of these services, such as Channel 4's 4OD and the ITV Player, must now comply with the new Audio Visual Media Services (AVMS) Directive that came into force on 19 December 2009.

AVMS is the successor to the Television without Frontiers Directive. It imposes the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code) on VoD services. This means that in future the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) can act if viewers complain about an advert.

Although VoD adverts don't have to be cleared in the same way as those appearing on traditional TV services (called linear TV), VoD services must abide by certain rules, including banning product placement in all children's programmes.

To ensure that the standards are adhered to, VoD providers including Virgin, Sky, ITV Channel 4 and Five began checking adverts on their services before the AVMS became law.

Clear cast, which monitors the adverts before they have been aired for these companies, said that because of the nature of VoD, timing restrictions currently assigned to linear adverts cannot be carried across. The company said it would assign levels for providers that will indicate whether there is violence, nudity, or potential harm or offence in an advert. Level one will he equivalent to adverts which must not be shown around children's programmes, level two for those that can't be shown before 7.30pm, level three adverts can be shown after 9pm, and levels four and five can be shown after 10pm and 11pm respectively.

The inclusion of online and on-demand video in the AVMS Directive was controversial, as some feared that the European Commission was attempting to extend media regulation to the whole internet; for example user-generated videos, such as those posted on Youtube.

Clearcast pointed out that the directive is only applicable to mass market TV-like services, Kristoffer Hammer for Clearcast said: "Any display advertisements or audio-visual ads the viewer will see before selecting a VoD programme will not be covered by the directive."

 

Source: Computer Active

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