GMTV Apologises For Insensitive Scheduling

The ITC has upheld complaints made against GMTV for insensitive scheduling. Eight viewers complained to the regulatory body after an advertisement for the Turkish Tourist Office was broadcast during reports on a football match between Galatasary and Leeds in the week of the fatal stabbing incident involving British fans in Turkey.

The breakfast television company apologised for any distress which may have been caused. It said that it had pulled the advert during the main broadcasts of the killing earlier in the week but that human error had allowed it to be shown again on the Friday.

Telewest was threatened with a financial penalty after it also committed scheduling errors. Adverts inserted by the cable group during programmes on the Cartoon Network included one for a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. Telewest said that the advert had been correctly coded for a children’s channel but a member of staff had failed to observe the coding, and removed it as soon as the error had been detected.

The ITC issued a formal warning to the licensee however, saying that the group’s monitoring system had let them down in the past and had failed to detect the error for nine days.

A complaint was upheld against the News of the World for a misleading advert for a Pokemon video. The commercial began “Get your free Pokemon Preview Video with this weekend’s News of the World”, giving the impression that it was available with that edition of the newspaper. A superimposed line at the end of the commercial stating “Collect tokens. Redeemable at Electronics Boutique,” was confusing and unclear to the public.

ITC: 020 7255 3000