ITV attacks Labour junk food ad ban
ITV last night hit back at Labour’s plan to implement a 9pm watershed for junk food advertising on television, saying there is no evidence it will reduce obesity.
The broadcaster said the ‘only certain outcome’ of an ad ban would be to make it harder for commercial public service broadcasters to invest in content, including dramas.
Sir Keir Starmer yesterday warned that British children were now ‘fatter than the French’. He vowed to introduce a ban on junk food adveraway
‘No reduction in child obesity’
tising on television before 9pm, while also banning paid-for advertising of less healthy foods on online media aimed at children.
But ITV hit back, telling the Mail: ‘We have explained to successive governments that there is no evidence that a pre-9pm TV ad ban will reduce childhood obesity – 95 per cent of all TV viewing before 9pm is by adults.
‘Despite huge declines in children’s exposure to TV advertising over the past ten years, there has been no corresponding reduction in levels of childhood obesity, if anything the opposite. The only certain outcome of an ad ban is that it will take money from the investment the commercial PSBs (public service broadcasters) make in content across the UK, especially drama which is increasingly expensive to produce.’
ITV is understood to have privately told ministers that a junk food ad ban would jeopardise the ability to make original dramas such as Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
It comes as Labour health spokesman Wes Streeting suggested the party could introduce a sugar tax once the cost of living crisis had eased.
A Conservative Party spokesman told the Mail: ‘Labour’s policy is a total mess. Having previously denied it, Wes Streeting has now opened the door to raiding Brits’ pockets with a new sugar tax.’