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SAB TV rapped by Ofcom over Jio sponsor on Filmfare Awards

Sony SAB TV has been pulled up by Ofcom over sponsorship Jio during its telecast of the Filmfare Awards in February.

Ofcom received a complaint about references to the event sponsor, Jio, throughout SAB TV’s coverage of the 2017 event.

As the programme contained a mixture of English and Hindi, Ofcom translated the Hindi content into English. Sony SAB TV was given an opportunity to comment on the accuracy of the translation and did not dispute it. The channel explained that it was a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Networks India Private Ltd (SPNI), who had secured the rights to broadcast the event. It explained that while references to ‘Reliance Jio’, the full name of the brand, were edited out of the programme before it was broadcast in the UK, some references to ‘Jio’, which means ‘to live’ in Hindi were inadvertently left in.

The broadcaster took responsibility for this error and told Ofcom that it had taken robust measures to ensure that this mistake would not recur and the programme would be edited before being broadcast again. It advised that the Jio products are only available to customers in India and to its knowledge there is no intention to launch this product in the UK. It also stated that it had not received any payments for the broadcast.

It added that SPNI intended to review the arrangements between the event owner and the event sponsor and if “adequate editorial control (to SPNI’s satisfaction) is not provided by the [e]vent owner/organizer, SPNI will evaluate continuing as the broadcast partner of the [e]vent”.

Ofcom recognises that in broadcast coverage of an event, such as an awards ceremony, there may be references to the event sponsor. However, when covering such events, broadcasters must take care to ensure that any reference to the sponsor and the products or services it offers is limited to what can be justified by the editorial needs of the programme and is not promotional.

In this case, the programme included detailed information on the range and quality of services provided by the sponsor (e.g. “Jio has made everything so easy, that you can go on a date with your girlfriend, without any money in your pocket, but in addition to this, not only can you receive bills, pay bills, but you can even travel with Jio, you can use Jio money not only in malls, but at every street corner” and favourable and superlative language (e.g. “Jio has made India the highest quality, most affordable data and voice market in the world”). In Ofcom’s view the content was clearly promotional in tone.

Further, the content described above focused entirely on the products and services offered by a specific business, Jio. There may be editorial justification for some reference to an event sponsor in the coverage of this type of event. However in this case, Ofcom considered that the emphasis and repeated focus on one company and its services were not editorially justified and were therefore unduly prominent.