ITC Renews Anglia TV Licence, Freezes Fees for 2001

The ITC has granted a renewal of Anglia Television’s licence for the ten years beginning 1 January 2001. Anglia submitted a formal application for the renewal, having accepted the terms proposed by the ITC (see ITC Announces Anglia Terms For Renewal), which included a cash sum of £3.42m.

Just before Christmas the ITC announced that it is to freeze the total fees payable by licensees in cash terms at £17.4m during the coming year. The fees, paid in order to cover the ITC’s costs of licensing and regulating of commercially funded TV services, include terrestrial and digital multiplex licences, satellite TV services, licensable programme services, commercial additional service licences, digital programme services and additional services licences and cable and local delivery service licences.

The TV advert which attracted the largest number of complaints to the ITC during November was for financial services company Egg. A total of 81 viewers complained about a series of four adverts featuring ‘Rob’, an extremely committed Egg representative, who keeps appearing during the daily routines of ‘Stuart’, the customer- washing his hair in the shower and cuddling him in bed, for example. Complainants questioned the scheduling of the advert and objected to perceived homosexual references. It was also said ‘Rob’ was sinister and that he subjected ‘Stuart’ to acts of sexual harassment. The advert ended with children’s voices singing “Egg and you, sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g”, which also caused complaint as it was thought that the use of this nursery rhyme could cause a connection in viewer’s minds between the behaviour of Rob and child abuse.

All but one of the adverts in the series had been cleared by the BACC to be shown around children’s programmes. The complaints were not upheld, as the ITC judged that, while some could find the content distasteful, it was suitable for general viewing. It did not consider that the adverts promoted or stereotyped any form of sexual preference, saying that ‘Rob’ was a “farcically over-caring” Egg representative, who was meant to demonstrate how much the company cared for its customers.

ITC: 020 7255 3000 www.itc.org.uk

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