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Published on August 4, 2007

Television and advert producers argued yesterday that the eight-minute-per-hour limit in draft legislation to control snack advertising for children was too strict and urged all sides to carry out their jobs with good sense instead.

The National Broadcast Commission (NBC) subcommittee for the advertising controls held a discussion on the Cabinet-approved draft legislation yesterday at the Public Relations Department for academics, business-operators, media and the public to voice opinions before the draft bill is submitted to the National Telecommunications Commission of Thailand.

Subcommittee chairman Dr Yongyuth Wongpiromsan said the bill's three main measures included one limiting the airing of snack adverts to eight minutes per hour, compared to the current 12 minutes, and the prohibition of a product from being shown more than twice in one hour.

The second measure includes prohibition of children, cartoons, entertainers and celebrities as advert presenters and of marketing promotions using give-aways and lucky draws, along with a requirement for adverts to have warning messages.

The third measure includes establishing a people's-sector committee to watch the ads and monitor the measures, Yongyuth said. Television and advert producers were unhappy with the first measure, especially the eight-minute limit, so the sub-committee will discuss it further before proposing solutions to the NBC board meeting on August 15, Yongyuth said.

The meeting yesterday agreed on the second measure and asked for the third measure to be cut because television stations already had a rating system in place, he added.

Surin Krittayapongpan from Channel 3 said the eight-minute time limit was too strict because most children's programmes existed because of support from advertising and if the ads were controlled in this way it would affect the programmes' production costs. He said the solution should be controlling the ads' quality rather than their airing frequency.

Niwat Wongprompreeda from the Advertising Association of Thailand said he disagreed with the eight-minute limit because it was a threatening tactic.

He suggested all sides should do their jobs better, parents controlling kids' snack consumption, the Food

and Drug Administration (FDA) controlling products and so on.

FDA official Pairoj Kaewmanee said the agency only controlled products' standards and had no power over children's consumption.

It had to act within its authority to implement the nutrition labels for ready-to-eat products made of potato and corn such as crispy snacks and products with fillings so that people knew how much salt and fat they contained, he added.