TV channels aimed at a teen audience, including the MTV and EMAP owned music stations, are set to accuse media regulator OfCom of "moving goalposts and steamrolling through" those recent new rules regarding the advertising of junk food to teenage TV viewers (or, rather, rules banning such advertising).
The problem is that the likes of MTV and EMAP were under the impression OfCom's new rules would not directly affect them, so few plans had been made as to adjusting sales and business plans to cope with them. But OfCom unexpectedly expanded their anti-junk food plans at the last minute, meaning the music channels are now very much affected, and with, the broadcasters claim, too little time to adapt to new regulations.
MediaWeek quote the Advertising Association's Suzanne Edmond who says: "There's a strong feeling within the broadcast industry that the goalposts have moved and that Ofcom has reinvented its regulatory objectives in response to political pressure".
Despite their annoyance in the last minute expansion of new regulation, it is unlikely MTV and EMAP et al will try to have the rules overturned, especially given all the media coverage surrounding the advertising of junk food to young people. However, the broadcasters, who have until 15 Dec to tell OfCom how they plan to comply with the new rules, are expected to say OfCom should have consulted them more before announcing the regulations, and that as a result of that fact they should be allowed more time to cut junk food advertising from their output.