No airing teleshopping ads that violate ASCI's code: Govt's new order

[caption id=“attachment_80097” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] ASCI recently issued guidelines for advertising of fairness products[/caption]

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has ordered broadcasters not to air advertisements that have been found in violation of the Advertising Standards Council of India’s (ASCI) code and aren’t complying with the decision of its Consumer Complaints Council (CCC).

While deliberating on the complaints received in ASCI, the CCC observed that many of the teleshopping advertisements made unsubstantiated claims and violated the provision of code for self-regulation as well as provisions under Drug & Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954. The MIB has in its advisory compiled a list of these ads and asked broadcasters not to carry them in their respective channels and to ensure strict compliance of the advertising code in the Cable Television Networks Act (CTN).

Speaking about the move, Partha Rakshit, chairman, ASCI said,“This is another feather in the cap of ASCI, in its efforts to make advertising more responsible. We kept finding that some advertisers on TV channels, especially Tele Shopping Networks, were not complying with the ASCI decisions. We submitted the list to the Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) of the MIB for their consideration. Based on that, IMC observed that any violation of ASCI code also violates the Advertising Code enshrined in the CTN Act and its rules. In short, IMC has directed that advertisements found to violate the ASCI code cannot be carried on TV channels.”

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The advisory sent by the MIB states that non-compliance of ASCI’s code of self-regulation is a violation of rule 7 (9) of the Advertising Code contained in the CTN Rules, which state state that ’no advertisement which violates the code of self-regulation in advertising, as adopted by ASCI for public exhibition inIndia, from time to time, shall be carried in the cable service’. Therefore, the ASCI decisions are not just bound for compliance by advertisers but also by TV channels.

Some of the products in the MIB’s Advisory list which violated the ASCI code are Fairpro, Ayurvedic Roopamri Fairness Cream, Celebrity Lift, GLO Intense Brightening System, Rashi Ratan Topaz Ring, Maha Dhan Lakshmi Yantram Musli Power Xtra, Brain Smart GTM, Bhairavi Sadhana, Shaktivardhan Vaccume Therapy, Sandhi Sudha Oil, Madhu Sanjivani, Addiction Killer, Easy Slim Tea and Maha Dhan Lakshmi Yantram, among others.

To read the full advisory issued by the MIB, click here.