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Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin Issue number 114 21 July 2008 Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 114 21 July 2008 Contents Introduction 4 Standards cases Sanction Square 1 Management Limited 5 Smile TV, 22 May 2007, 22:15 In Breach The Great Global Warming Swindle 6 Channel 4, 8 March 2007, 21:00 American Idol 23 ITV2, various dates, March 2008 to May 2008 Red Hot TV Trailer 25 Red Hot TV, 13 February 2008, 20.00 – 22.00 SportxxxGirls 28 SportxxxGirls, 10 February 2008, 22:00 Resolved ITV News 29 ITV1, 18 December 2007, 18:30 Not in Breach Trailers for Extraordinary People: The Man With No Face 30 Five and Five Life, 25 and 26 March 2008, 19:00; 20:45 and 20:48; and Trailers for Extraordinary People: Half Man Half Tree Five and Five Life, 8 to 14 April 2008 at various times before 21:00 Trailers for Bodyshock: I Am The Elephant Man 32 Channel 4, 2 April 2008, 17:35 and other times before 21:00 Note to Broadcasters Revised guidance to Rule 9.1 to the Ofcom Broadcasting Code 34 2 Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 114 21 July 2008 Fairness & Privacy cases Upheld Complaint by Sir David King 36 The Great Global Warming Swindle, Channel 4, 8 March 2007 Partly Upheld Complaint by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 43 The Great Global Warming Swindle, Channel 4, 8 March 2007 Complaint by Professor Carl Wunsch 70 The Great Global Warming Swindle, Channel 4, 8 March 2007 Other programmes not in breach/resolved 81 3 Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 114 21 July 2008 Introduction Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code (“the Code”) took effect on 25 July 2005 (with the exception of Rule 10.17 which came into effect on 1 July 2005). This Code is used to assess the compliance of all programmes broadcast on or after 25 July 2005. The Broadcasting Code can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode/ The Rules on the Amount and Distribution of Advertising (RADA) apply to advertising issues within Ofcom’s remit from 25 July 2005. The Rules can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/advertising/#content From time to time adjudications relating to advertising content may appear in the Bulletin in relation to areas of advertising regulation which remain with Ofcom (including the application of statutory sanctions by Ofcom). It is Ofcom policy to state the full language used on air by broadcasters who are the subject of a complaint. Some of the language used in Ofcom Broadcast Bulletins may therefore cause offence. 4 Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 114 21 July 2008 Standards cases Notice of Sanction Square 1 Management Limited Smile TV, 22 May 2007, 22:15 On 10 July 2008 Ofcom published its decision to impose a statutory sanction on Square 1 Management Limited (“Square 1”) in respect of its service Smile TV (now known as Blue Kiss TV) for a serious breach of the Broadcasting Code. Smile TV includes so-called ‘babe’ programming, i.e. live programmes using female presenters (described as ‘babes’) who invite viewers to contact them using premium rate services (“PRS”). The service was found in breach of the following Code Rules: 1.24 (‘adult-sex’ material); 2.1 (generally accepted standards); 2.3 (material that may cause offence must be justified by context). Ofcom found Square 1 in breach of these rules due to the following conduct: the free-to-air transmission of material of a character that should have been subject to protection by encryption and other controls (breach of rule 1.24); broadcasting sexually explicit content contrary to viewer expectations for a free-to-air unencrypted channel (breaches of Rules 2.1 and 2.3). For the reasons set out in the adjudication Ofcom imposed a financial penalty of £17,500 on Square 1 (payable to HM Paymaster General). The full adjudication can be found at: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/obb/ocsc_adjud/SmileTV.pdf 5 Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 114 21 July 2008 In Breach The Great Global Warming Swindle Channel 4, 8 March 2007, 21:00 Introduction On 8 March 2007 Channel 4 broadcast The Great Global Warming Swindle. This programme sought to challenge the theory that human activity is the major cause of climate change and global warming (also described as the theory of anthropogenic global warming). The programme included contributions from a wide range of scientists and other commentators who variously argued that the current consensus on the causes of global warming was based on unsound science and was politically motivated. The programme was narrated by film maker Martin Durkin. He also wrote and directed the programme. The narration stated: “In this film it will be shown that the earth’s climate is always changing. That there is nothing unusual about the current temperature and that the scientific evidence does not support the notion that climate is driven by carbon dioxide, man-made or otherwise. Everywhere you are told that man-made climate change is proved beyond doubt. But you are being told lies.” “…This is a story of how a theory about climate turned into a political ideology…it is the story of the distortion of a whole area of science…it is the story of how a political campaign turned into a bureaucratic bandwagon…” Elsewhere the programme narration stated: “Global warming has gone beyond politics, it is a new kind of morality”; “...as the frenzy over man-made global warming grows shriller, many senior scientists say the actual scientific basis for the theory is crumbling”; “It is a distortion of a whole area of science”; “….the global warming alarm is now beyond reason”. Ofcom received 265 complaints about the programme from members of the public. Ofcom also received a substantial complaint 176 pages long from a group of complainants, some of whom were scientists (“the Group Complaint”).1 In summary, the complainants were concerned that the programme was not presented with due impartiality and that as a factual programme it misled the audience by misrepresenting “facts”. The Group Complaint also offered a very detailed and critical analysis of the programme. Factual Accuracy The complainants questioned the factual accuracy of the programme, suggesting that it: (a) presented facts in a misleading way; and 1 Ofcom also received three complaints from those who either participated in the programme or who were the ‘person affected’ as defined in s111 of the Broadcasting Act 1996(as amended). These were considered under Ofcom’s Fairness and Privacy function. The decisions reached on those complaints appear elsewhere in this Broadcast Bulletin – see pages 36 to 80, below. 6 Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 114 21 July 2008 (b) omitted facts, issues or alternative views. Overall, the effect according to the complainants would be that viewers would be discouraged from undertaking action to help prevent climate change. The complaints set out numerous alleged instances of the way in which facts included in the programme misled viewers. These included the alleged misrepresentation of data, graphs, scientific literature, historical events, press articles, and film footage. Channel 4 in its response defended the programme in respect of all of these issues and Ofcom considered all of the alleged instances of factual inaccuracy in reaching the conclusions contained in this finding. Ofcom is not a fact-finding tribunal and its obligation in this case was to reach a fair and reasonable decision on whether The Great Global Warming Swindle breached the requirements of the Code. Given the ambit of Ofcom’s obligation as regards adjudicating on the complaints, however it was in Ofcom’s opinion impractical and inappropriate for it to examine in detail all of the multifarious alleged examples of factual inaccuracy set out in the complaints. After careful deliberation, Ofcom therefore chose four particular aspects of the programme to examine as part of its overall assessment of whether the programme materially misled the audience. These were: the use of graphs; the alleged “distortion” of the science of climate modelling; presentation of the argument that the theory of man-made global warming is promoted as a means to limit economic growth; and, not giving an accurate and fair presentation of the expertise and credibility of various contributors. These particular areas were selected because they featured in a large number of the complaints, and in Ofcom’s opinion were reasonably illustrative of the key issues and different types of alleged factual inaccuracy in the programme. Each of these four areas is set out below. (a) The presentation of facts in a misleading way The use of graphs in the programme Complainants stated that the programme contained “falsification or serious misrepresentation of graphs or data”. One graph that was shown in the programme purported to be a representation of changes in world temperature over the past 120 years and the information it contained was attributed to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”). Relying on the graph, the programme narration suggested that most of the warming in the twentieth century actually occurred before the post-World War II industrial boom. The Group Complaint stated that the original source of the graph is unclear so it was incorrect for the programme makers to attribute it to NASA. It also suggested that the graph presented in the programme was misleading because the original graph that the figures were based on actually ended in the mid-1980s. The Group Complaint asserted that the producers of the programme had re-labelled and extended the time scale on the graph to give the incorrect impression that the data on the graph in fact extended to the present day (i.e.