Love Island: stars’ on-screen smoking angers health charity | Television & radio

Love Island: stars’ on-screen smoking angers health charity | Television & radio

The bedroom activities of Love Island’s glamorous contestants are providing many a watercooler moment in offices across the land. But their love of smoking is provoking an altogether different kind of debate.

Amid growing concerns about the rise of smoking on screens and its influence on the young, the media regulator Ofcom has been asked by a leading health charity to investigate whether the show is in breach of strict codes governing lighting up on television. Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) is questioning why the contestants’ cigarettes are contained in plain white packs which hide the highly visible â€" and distinctly unglamorous â€" graphic health warnings that carry pictures of diseased lungs and references to male impotence.

Many of the contestants competing to win £50,000 in prize money are regularly shown smoking, to the irritation of viewers who have expressed dismay at the image the islanders are projecting to younger viewers . Ash points out that the Broadcasting Code states that smoking “must not be condoned, encouraged or glamorised in ... programmes likely to be widely seen or heard by under-18s, unless there is editorial justification”.

ITV acknowledges the show is “proving a massive success with young audiences, regularly capturing a 56% share of 16 to 34-year-old viewers”, but since the show is broadcast past the 9 o’clock watershed, it is therefore considered an adult programme.

In its letter to Ofcom, seen by the Observer, Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said: “I consider it reasonable to require programme-makers to have very strong justifications for showing smoking in a programme likely to be seen by young people, particularly if it depicts smoking by glamorous and attractive characters or people. I have seen no such justification in this case.”

An ITV spokesman responded: “The islanders are only shown smoking if this happens at the same time as they are having conversations we believe to be editorially important to the narrative of the show.” ITV insists that the contestants’ cigarettes are contained in plain white packs so that the show will not be seen to be promoting one brand. The Ofcom Code prohibits product placement of cigarettes or other tobacco products.

But Arnott questioned this approach. Since May, cigarette packs carry the brand name only in print, which viewers would struggle to make out. “Why, if smoking is to be depicted at all on the programme, are the cigarettes not in the standardised packaging required by UK legislation, which provides for strong graphic and text health warnings to be placed on packs?” she wrote.

“I assume this is because pictures designed to show that smoking can lead to male impotence or diseased lungs do not fit the “glamorous” framing of the show. If true, this surely reinforces the conclusion that the programme is in breach of section 1.10 of the Code.”

Craig Lawson, a dumped contestant, recently told the Sun that every islander was given at least 20 cigarettes a day by producers. The contestants are free to choose their brand of cigarette. E-cigarettes are also made available.

Confidential documents released as a result of multi-billion legal actions confirm that cigarette companies believe recruiting new generations of younger smokers is key to their survival. The 2001 General Lifestyle Survey revealed that almost two-fifths of smokers had started smoking before the age of 16. Advertising was seen as crucial to luring the new generation in.

But while most developed countries have now banned advertising, health experts are alarmed that on-screen cigarette smoking is on the rise, something that helps normalise the activity in the minds of young people.

Researchers from UC San Francisco and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that from 2010 to 2016 the number of tobacco incidents in top-grossing movies increased by 72%, up from 1,824 to 3,145. Nearly half of these films were aimed at young people. A 2003 study in the US, published in the Lancet, found that “viewing smoking in movies promotes smoking initiation among adolescents”. Arnott told the Observer: “Love Island’s use of free cigarettes might have been designed to encourage smoking. We will be asking Ofcom to consider our complaint as matter of urgency.”

ITV said it was happy for Ofcom to consider the charity’s issues. It had no plans to change its approach to participants who smoked during filming.

قالب وردپرس

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: