Part C.

Regulation

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UKs independent regulator of advertising across all
media. We apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising
Practice. Our work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take
action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisement. 1
Theyre important because they protect the mass audiences from inappropriate content,
violence, nudity, misleading information and violence. Advertisements need to be regulated
because without a strict set of rules to abide by then an advertisement may be offensive to
certain types of audiences. An advertisement is broadcasted to many different types people,
and to ensure that an advertisement doesnt have any offensive material within it for example:
racism, sexism, discrimination, inappropriate for certain age types.

OFCOM are The Office Of Communications and are known to regulate broadcasting and
telecommunications (radio and television) within the UK. Theyre important because they
regulate and protect the mass audience from harsh/ offensive content in television programmes
and radio broadcasts. One way do this is by having a watershed, watershed is the point in time
that television programmes may broadcast adult content (after 9pm) such as drug use, sex,
swearing, they do this to protect the nation's children from adult content. Also OFCOM deal with
complaints from the audience, if a certain thing on television is complained about a lot they will
have to monitor that certain media that has been complained about so much; they monitor tv
programmed for harsh or offensive material. Ofcom is funded by fees from industry for
regulating broadcasting and communications networks, and grant-in-aid from the
Government. 2
OFCOM operates under many different acts of parliament. Some of these are:
- Communications act 2003
- Wireless Telegraphy act 2006
- Broadcasting Acts 1990 and 1996
- Digital Economy Act 2010
- Postal Services Act 2011

OFCOM and ASA are very familiar but there are some key differences and should be noted,
ASA regulate advertisements for harsh and offensive content and protect their audiences from
these harsh materials. However OFCOM monitor television and radio for offensive and harsh
content. Both organisations regulate but regulate different things.

1 https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA.aspx

2 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/what-is-ofcom
BCAP are Broadcast Committee of advertising practice and are responsible for regulating
broadcast advertisements, theyre in charge of maintaining the broadcast advertising standards
codes.
The BCAP codes are basically the outlining rules for advertisements, they must always be
abided by, the rules are followed by advertisers, media owners and agencies. These codes are
very specific on what is unappropriate material to advertise, adverts must not have: offensive
material or misleading information etc
Their are rules for alcohol, health, gambling and financial products. Their codes enables the
safety of the all audiences and helps advertisements and broadcasts to not create
offensive/harmful media texts.

Vista print - In their advert they promoted 1,000 flyers for 13.99 and was complained about
because they couldnt find the deal on their website. The advertisement broke CAP codes 3.1
and 3.3 (misleading information) and 3.17, 3.18 (prices). However the ruling was upheld.