Children’s exposure to TV ads for age-restricted products is falling – report

Children see 161.2 television ads every week but declining exposure to age-restricted products means just one is for alcohol and almost three are related to gambling, latest figures show.

Under 16s see 9.6 ads a week for products high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS), according to the latest data from 2017, although this includes items such as olive oil, butter and cheese which is likely to have minimal appeal, according to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) report.

The study shows that children’s exposure to television ads for alcohol has decreased by 62.5% since 2013 while the number of gambling ads they see is down 37.3%.

Children’s exposure to all TV ads peaked in 2013 at 229.3 ads per week and has fallen by 29.7% since then.

Data on HFSS product ads is limited to 2016 and 2017, but children’s exposure to them is down 22.9%.

Alcohol ads made up just 0.6% of all TV ads children saw in 2017, equating to around 22.1 seconds per week.

Gambling ads made up less than 2% of all the TV ads that children saw on average every year between 2008 and 2017, equating to approximately 65.2 seconds per week.

The majority of TV ads for gambling that children have seen since 2011 are for bingo, lottery and scratchcards, the study found, while their exposure to ads for sports betting has decreased from an average of one ad per week in 2011 to 0.4 in 2017.

ASA chief executive Guy Parker said: “Protecting children has always been at the heart of our regulation.

“These findings show that in recent years, children’s exposure to TV ads for alcohol, gambling and food and soft drink products high in fat, salt or sugar is declining.

“We’re not complacent though and we’ll continue to actively monitor and report on this important area of work.

“Our next focus will be to examine whether the rules are working in the same way online and we’ll report on that later in 2019.”