Ofcom finds against Ben 10: Alien Force for breaking sponsorship rules

The latest Ofcom Bulletin includes a judgement against Turner Entertainment Networks International Limited, the licence holder for Cartoon Network. During monitoring, Ofcom noticed that the series Ben 10: Alien Force was sponsored by Ben 10: Alien Force the Game. The credits featured footage from the video game, which included one of the main characters from the series.

Rule 9.3 of the sponsorship Code requires sponsorship to comply with advertising content and scheduling rules. The rules that apply to the scheduling of television advertising require that:   •   advertisements for merchandise based on children’s programmes must not be broadcast in the two hours before or after the relevant programme; and   •   a person (including cartoon and puppet characters), whose appearance is central to a programme, must not appear in advertisements scheduled in breaks in or adjacent to the relevant programme. The purpose of these rules is to assist in maintaining a clear distinction between advertising and editorial material, say Ofcom. The rules are also in place to reduce the risk of children being more vulnerable to the impact of advertising of merchandise based on programmes they are or have been watching. Protected Ofcom therefore sought the broadcaster’s comments on the sponsorship arrangement under Rule 9.3 of the Code. Turner Entertainment Networks International Limited (“Turner”), the licence holder for Cartoon Network, said that it had always been its interpretation that the advertising “separation” rules were not applicable to sponsor credits. This is because the Code requires sponsorship to be distinct from advertising. Turner believed that the scheduling rules referred to in Rule 9.3 were those that protected viewers from products and services that they should not be exposed to at all (e.g. those products that could never be scheduled around children’s programmes e.g. alcohol). Turner noted that sponsorship credits are editorial material, designed to inform viewers of the relationship between the sponsor and programme. Because credits must not contain the promotional qualities of an advertisement, Turner said that it had always been its understanding that Rule 9.3 would not impose a prohibition on products such as toys sponsoring     children’s programmes. Turner believed that its interpretation of Rule 9.3 had been common practice in the broadcasting industry for a number of years and asserted that the ITC, the regulator that preceded Ofcom, had indicated that the practice was acceptable. Ofcom decided that Rule 9.3 applies the same content and scheduling restrictions to sponsor credits as those which apply to advertising. Harmful While sponsor credits must not contain the types of selling messages that are included in advertising, references to the sponsor or its products are permitted. Such references clearly provide the sponsor with promotional benefits, said the regulator. Rule 9.3 therefore ensures that sponsor credits do not contain material that is harmful and/or offensive and prevents advertisers from using sponsorship as a means of circumventing advertising regulations. The advertising rules that prohibit the broadcast of advertisements for programme based merchandise, and those that feature programme characters, around the related programme recognise that children are more likely to be vulnerable to the impact of such advertising and susceptible to confusion between what is programming and what is advertising. Incompatible Ofcom does not exempt sponsorship from these rules, and, to Ofcom's knowledge, neither did the ITC. "The licensee did not provide us with any evidence that supported its assertion that sponsorship credits did not have to comply with the scheduling advertising rules", they said. The sponsorship of a children’s programme by merchandise based on that programme, or sponsor credits that features characters from the sponsored programme is incompatible with Rule 9.3, said Ofcom. The sponsorship arrangement and the sponsor credits were therefore in breach of Rule 9.3.