Ofcom today fined Television Concepts Ltd (in respect of its service Look4Love) 175,000 GBP and issued it with notice of its intention to revoke its licence. Ofcom has decided to take action following a number of serious breaches of the BCAP TV Advertising Standards Code and the Television Concepts failure to comply with an ASA Direction and Ofcom warnings in relation to a variety of explicit content broadcast on a free to air channel, and in particular a TV ad for an explicit phone service, which the channel failed to remove from broadcast after being instructed to do so by an ASA direction.

According to Ofcom
“In short from 8 May 2006, Simon Woolnough was given a direction to suspend his advertisement with immediate effect; the ASA gave further instructions on two occasions to comply with this direction. Ofcom re-enforced the ASA’s direction three times, and notified the licensee, on 15 May 2006, that failure to comply with a direction is a ground for revocation. Nevertheless, as noted above, it was not until 28 May 2006, according to the broadcaster, that the material ceased to be broadcast. In the Committee’s view, Simon Woolnough simply accepted and continued to accept the view of the third party would provided the TV ad (Babestar.tv Live XXX) who told him the ad was compliant despite receiving the direction and warnings from those who regulated it”.

They went on to say that the action by Mr Woolnough was neither an “accident or misunderstanding” and that when faced with a choice he had chosen to ” continue broadcasting the commercially profitable, but non-compliant material”

Television Concepts Ltd now has 42 days to put into operation and lodge with Ofcom effective written compliance arrangements, and to demonstrate over the next 28 days that it is complying with its licence conditions and all the relevant broadcast codes. If it fails to do so, its licence will then be revoked.