Network Ten breaches gambling ad rules
Network Ten breached gambling advertising rules during its broadcast of the Australian F1 Grand Prix in March last year, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) ruled on Wednesday morning.
An investigation by the communications watchdog revealed its findings this week, which detected four gambling ads that were aired at prohibited times during a broadcast of the sporting event.
Under the Commercial TV Code of Practice, gambling ads cannot be shown during broadcasts of sporting events between 5am and 8:30pm, including the five minutes before and after the event.
The ads were shown during the first practice round — which is held to the same standard as the main event itself — of the Grand Prix.
“Broadcasters should have strict controls in place to ensure compliance with the restrictions on gambling ads during sporting events,” said ACMA authority member, Carolyn Lidgerwood.
She said these rules exist to “protect the community” from gambling related harms.
During the investigation, Network Ten submitted that the broadcasts occurred due to “human error”, and following the ACMA’s findings, the network voluntarily improved the planning, checks and balanced it has in place for ad scheduling.
The network also agreed to review its processes to introduce additional quality controls, at the ACMA’s request, and will train staff to avoid similar issues in the future – with an agreement to send a written progress report to the ACMA.
In a separate investigation in 2024, the ACMA found the Ten’s streaming service, 10 Play, also breached online gambling advertising rules during two live-streamed sports events.
The findings related to live streams on October 14, 2023, of the A-League Women’s Central Coast Mariners v Newcastle Jets match, and a Socceroos friendly match against England.
Ten said that breach was due to an error in a manual coding process, which has since been upgraded.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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topics
ACMA
Australian Communications and Media Authority
Australian Grand Prix
breach
Carolyn Lidgerwood
F1
Gambling ads
Network 10
Serious question, what is the actual point of ACMA? All of this money wasted on salaries, office rent, stationary and everything else for this eleven month process to say “do some internal training and say you will improve your processes”. It is an absolute joke.
If the government or anyone had any backbone, gambling ads would just be banned altogether and the community will be “protected” which is what ACMA is laughingly trying to do.
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The amount of money gambled on a A-League Women’s Central Coast Mariners v Newcastle Jets match is probably more than they make in ticket sales. The gambling money keeps these clubs alive. I’m sure they are happy for the errors.
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I’ll bet whoever booked the slots has already been promoted
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