While there are censorship laws that restrict what type of commercial advertising can be aired when it comes to live or online gambling, U.K. TV broadcaster Channel 5 was recently allowed an exception to traditional censorship, Gaming Intelligence reports.
Reality TV show “My Spiral into Debt Hell” features individuals who are experiencing extreme problems with debt. In a recent episode, they featured an online gambler who ran up so much gambling debt that he lost everything—his home, his job, and his family.
While the informative angle of this episode allowed Channel 5 an exception from the traditional censorship, online casinos saw the episode as an excellent opportunity to buy commercial ad space during the breaks between the show. Both Supercasino.com and Rush Poker Mobile took the ad spots between the show and immediately thereafter.
After the show aired, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 13 complaints that while the show highlighted the downside of gambling, the commercials were inappropriate. In response the ASA stated: “We acknowledged that the ads for online gambling were incongruous with the programme content, but [we] considered the scheduling of those ads around the programme was not irresponsible, or an unsuitable juxtaposition that was likely to cause distress or offence to viewers.”
In the end all complaints were dismissed.
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