Action call over TV drinks ads seen by children

Published on Tuesday 28 August 2007 00:51

THOUSANDS of children are exposed to alcohol commercials during popular television shows, a campaign group has warned.

The Simpsons, Home and Away, Coronation Street and The X-Factor all carried drinks adverts during commercial breaks, Alcohol Concern said.

Alcohol commercials increase "dramatically" between 3pm and 5pm - the time when children are home from school, its study found.

Alcohol Concern is calling for a 9pm watershed to be introduced for alcohol advertising to reduce the number of children who see them.

At present, alcohol adverts can be broadcast at any time of day providing they are not shown during programmes where children make up more than 20 per cent of the viewers.

But Alcohol Concern says this threshold makes it impossible for parents to predict when drink commercials will be shown.

The charity's calls follow its Not In Front Of The Children report which monitored the number of drinks adverts before and after 9pm during one week in December 2006 and one week in March 2007.

Researchers monitored eight channels across terrestrial TV, cable and satellite.

Srabani Sen, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said: "A watershed ban is the only way to give parents the peace of mind of knowing that their children can be kept safe from the influence of advertising."

But David Poley, chief executive of the Portman Group, which represents nine drinks companies, said: "The advertising rules, which were toughened two years ago, ban adverts from targeting or appealing to under-18s.

"Shielding this age group from any images of alcohol is not helping them to grow up with sensible and balanced attitudes to drinking."