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Introduction

1.1 On March 28th, 2006, Ofcom published a consultation on the television advertising of high fat, salt or sugar (“HFSS”) food and drink products to children, in which proposals were made to restrict such advertising as part of the measures to be taken to tackle childhood obesity. The proposals were accompanied by an Impact Assessment which included analysis of their effect on the amount of advertising that children see, their likely impact on broadcasters and other affected stakeholders and also an assessment of their likely benefits that was based on analysis carried out by the Food Standards Agency (“FSA”).

1.2 Since the publication of the consultation document, Ofcom has received a number of queries from stakeholders, including those working to develop a fourth option, about the modelling work that Ofcom carried out. In light of those queries, Ofcom considered that it would be sensible to update and restructure the model to analyse the different policy options in the Impact Assessment in order to make it more straightforward to replicate the analysis, in particular by using the most up to date information for calendar year 2005. In addition, Ofcom has corrected some errors identified in the previous input data and modelling.

1.3 The overall effect of the revised data and modelling is to decrease the costs to broadcasters of each of the proposed policy packages set out in the consultation document and also to decrease the cost to broadcasters of a pre-9pm ban on HFSS advertising; and to decrease the impact of all three of the proposed policy packages on the amount of advertising that children see. The impact of the pre-9pm ban on the amount of advertising that children see is unchanged. See further section 2 below.

1.4 Having considered the revised data, Ofcom is maintaining the proposals for new restrictions on the advertising of food and drink products to children as set out in the consultation document. The reasons for this are set out below in section 2. They follow the order of the discussion set out in the original consultation document.

1.5 Appendix 1 to this document provides revised updated versions of all the relevant tables from the Impact Assessment published with the consultation document. The revised data tables replace the previous versions of the tables included in the consultation document, which have now been superseded.

1.6 In order to provide consultees with an opportunity to consider the revised data and take it into account in their responses to the consultation, the consultation period has been extended until June 30th, 2006.

The full document is available below:

• Television Advertising of Food and Drink to Children: Options for new restrictions [pdf]
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