Examination of Witnesses (Questions 416-419)
PAUL BOLT,
PATRICIA HODGSON
CBE, DAVID EDMONDS,
TONY STOLLER
AND DAVID
HENDON
TUESDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2002
Chairman
416. Lady and gentlemen, thank you very much
for coming to see us; as formidable a panel as we have had before
us for quite a while. I understand, Mr Stoller, that, before we
start the questioning, there are some introductory remarks you
would like to make?
(Mr Stoller) Chairman, thank you, yes;
just by way of doing a brief introduction, on behalf of the five
of us, how much we welcome the opportunity of giving oral evidence
to you today. Three of our organisations have put in written memoranda,
as well; and to say we will all be happy to deal both with matters
that deal with our own individual areas of responsibility and
also, of course, the preparatory work we have done by way of paving
the way towards OFCOM. Thank you.
Chairman: Those were brief remarks, Mr
Stoller. Thank you very much.
Ms Shipley
417. I would like to address my opening questions
to Patricia Hodgson, in her role. You may or may not know that
I tabled an early day motion in the House on children's advertising.
Now you, in your CV to us, say, "guarantee appropriate editorial
and advertising standards." So I wonder, because I want to
be very focused in my questioning, if you could, very briefly,
express that in terms of broadcasting to pre-school children?
(Ms Hodgson) We would hope to ensure that there was
a good range of high quality programming available for pre-school
children, particularly original UK production, and I believe your
concerns have been about the advertising that surrounds such programmes;
and, of course, the current regime is that certain advertisements
are deemed unsuitable for broadcasting around children's programming,
defined by different age groups.
418. And I would like you to address just pre-school,
please?
(Ms Hodgson) Yes. And there are prohibitions on certain
kinds of advertising for that group, as well as for older groups,
and, indeed, within two hours of that programming. I think your
underlying question, which was whether advertising should be excluded
altogether from around such programming, raises a bigger question
from the precise suitability of particular ads, which is how otherwise
do you fund the programming?
419. That is not what I want to go into with
you though, I think that is outside your area for this particular
thing. What I am getting at is that you are telling me that there
are prohibitions around pre-school, what can be advertised around
pre-school broadcasts?
(Ms Hodgson) Yes.
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