Making Parents' Voices Heard
Ipsos MORI survey in March 2008 found that the ASA was the best known media regulator (Advertising Standards Authority, 2008).
10.
Despite this good public awareness, the ASA still receives complaints about issues which are not within its remit. For example, in 2010, of the 1,863 total complaints connected with children received, 115 (6.1%) were outside the remit of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority, 2011(1)).
11.
The ASA works hard to improve public understanding of its role and to help consumers navigate the complaints landscape. In our view, the ASA website was the most user-friendly of all the regulators’ sites we looked at (Advertising Standards Authority, 2011(2)). In addition to promoting its own services, the ASA website offers a good range of information about the roles and responsibilities of other regulators. Indeed, we found that there was more information easily to hand on the ASA's website about issues outside its remit – for example what to do about a complaint about a shop window – than we could find on other regulators' websites. We are also aware that the ASA works proactively to forward complaints to the relevant regulator if they are not in the ASA’s remit.
12.
In contrast, we feel that the complaint mechanisms for other sectors are more opaque.
Broadcasting
13.
Unlike the advertising industry, broadcasting does not have a one—stop location for complaints. Complaints can be made to a variety of bodies – for example, the programme maker or programme website, the channel or radio station, the broadcasting company or the broadcast regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom). In addition, for video-on-demand programming, complaints can also be made to the on-demand provider, the internet service provider or the regulator, the Authority for Television On Demand (ATVOD). Complaints methods, processes and timescales are different for all of these bodies. This also means that complaints about a particular programme or issue are not all in one place, making it difficult to assess accurately the size and nature of viewers' reactions.
Retail
14.
There is no regulatory framework that covers taste and decency issues in retailing in the way that these are covered for the advertising and broadcasting industries. Legislation through the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 covers only misleading or unfair trading so the Office of Fair Trading and Trading Standards Officers, the main retail regulators, cannot consider issues beyond this remit. In extreme cases concerning indecency, there may be a case for complaining to the police: for example if a shop window display was pornographic. But the kinds of retail products and displays complained of by parents in our Call for Evidence, such as inappropriate slogans on childrenswear, or overtly sexualised poses of mannequins in shop windows, can only be brought to the attention of the retailer in question.
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