ASA Ban TalkTalk TV Advert for Misleading Catch Up Content Availability

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a television advert for TalkTalk’s broadband TV (YouView) service after it failed to make clear that “some catch-up [TV] content is excluded from the on demand services“.

The ad itself claimed that customers could view “over 70 freeview channels, and you can watch Catch-Up TV on your TV“, which was accompanied by logos for BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand 5 and a small bit of text stating “Catch up available for certain channels only“.

But two people complained that not all of the promoted catch up TV content was accessible to them, although no specific examples are offered. However it is known that some films and TV shows may occasionally be excluded due to rights issues that prohibit viewing in the UK via such platforms, much as occurred with the earlier NOW TV complaint today.

ASA Ruling

“We noted that the voice-over stated “You can watch Catch-Up TV on your TV” and “YouView also lets you scroll back to shows you’ve missed from the last seven days …” and that the ad included the logos of BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, and Demand 5 and a list of channels, including BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV2, on the service’s EPG.

We considered that the imagery along with the voice-over suggested that the advertised service included all of the catch up content of the on-demand services referred to. Because this was not the case and some catch up content was excluded from the on-demand services included in the advertiser service, we concluded that the ad was misleading.”

Once again the ASA banned TalkTalk’s advert and told them that future ads must “make clear that some catch up content is excluded from the on demand services accessible through their service“.