[Peakoil] FW: Solar power ad rejected for being "problematic"

[Adrian Whitehead]

Read this for yourself to believe it

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Solar power ad rejected for being "problematic"

 

Crikey reporter Sophie Black writes:

 

The people behind renewable energy company SolarShop were overjoyed when
high profile scientist Dr Tim Flannery agreed to appear in their latest TV
commercial. That is, until Commercials Advice (CAD), the company in charge
of classification and approval of ad content on behalf of the Federation of
Australian Commercial Television Broadcasters, made the unusual move of
rejecting the commercial after initially approving it.

SolarShop, a South Australian company, now suspects CAD of bowing to
political interference after they were told that the rejection was based on
Flannery's statement, "Climate Change is the greatest threat facing humanity
today." 

 

SolarShop managing director Adrian Ferraretto began to suspect something
"very fishy" after the ad was initially approved last Wednesday afternoon,
48 hours after SolarShop sent the commercial for approval. It wasn't until
mid afternoon on the following Friday that CAD informed SolarShop that
they'd changed their minds. "To have it approved...and then disapproved on
Friday, when the ads were due to go to air on Sunday morning seems very
suspicious, and highly unusual," Ferraretto told Crikey.

 

CAD notified SolarShop of their new decision less than 48 hours before the
advertisement featuring Flannery was due to debut during Sunday on Channel
Nine. Flannery's statement was also set to run as a community service
announcement supported by Channel Nine and SolarShop but that was also
rejected by CAD.

 

"We tried to email, call them ... but they weren't taking our calls. We
still haven't heard back from them. Meanwhile we've spent $50,000 on a
month's worth of Adelaide air time and we can't run the ad. We had to rejig
an old ad, without Flannery, and run that instead."

 

In the email sent to SolarShop on Friday, Commercials Advice lawyer Jason
Poulos wrote that Flannery's initial statement was "problematic". 

 

In order to preserve the accuracy of the advertisements, can you please
revisit this statement and consider using alternative wording as description
of the issue of climate change. Examples you might wish to consider are
"Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity today" or
"Climate change is an important issue for us all".

 

"Flannery was very upset," said Ferraretto. "We are too. It was such a coup
to get him on our ad, we were so excited, but now we can't air it and we're
not sure why."

 

Ferraretto suspects that it was the announcer's (not Flannery's) statement
at the end of the ad - "Solar electricity from the SolarShop,

Stepney: we're DOING Kyoto ANYWAY!" - that raised the ire of whoever
rejected the ad. Ferraretto says SolarShop are currently reviewing their
legal options. 

 

Crikey contacted CAD for a response but they didn't get back to us before
publication.

 

Christal George
Corporate Ethics Researcher
Centre for Australian Ethical Research (CAER)
PO Box 229, Belconnen  ACT  2616
Ph: +61 2 6201 1957
Fax: + 61 2 6201 1987
E-mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:cgeorge at caer.org.au"cgeorge at caer.org.au
Web: HYPERLINK "http://www.caer.org.au"www.caer.org.au

 


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