Complaints about TV adverts upheld

Press, 12 May 1981, Page 16

Complaints about TV adverts upheld

PA Wellington The Broadcasting Tribunal has upheld two complaints covering cigarette and liquor advertising on television and radio.

The complaints laid last year by Mr Clifford Turner of Hamilton, were against the Lion Breweries race results advertisement on radio and a Dunhill television ad vertising campaign. In upholding the complaints the tribunal disagreed with the Broadcasting Corporation’s interpretation of its own rules.

Rules governing the advertising of liquor stipulate that advertisements which are designed to encourage or promote the sale or consumption of liquor may not be

broadcast. Advertisements must not specifically refer to cigarettes, cigarette papers, cigarette tobacco, or mention the brand name of any such products. In the decisions handed down last week the tribunal made a strong call for the rules governing liquor and cigarette advertising to be rewritten, comprehensive, consistent, and realistic. Mr Peter Fabian, head of programme standards for the Corporation, told NZPA: “We will be examining the rules, in keeping with the views expressed by the tribunal. He said that in the case of radio any .changes must be endorsed both by the Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Broadcasters’ Association.