January 30, 2017

Ofcom’s note offers general guidance on the application of Rule 9.5 of the Broadcasting Code to cases where sports events broadcast an on-screen acknowledgment of a provider of technical information such as lap times, match statistics or a scoreboard. Rule 9.5 requires broadcasters to ensure that no undue prominence is given to a product, service or trade mark.

Ofcom states that the technical information must be integral to viewers’ understanding of the sports event and the absence of the information would make it difficult for viewers to follow the action adequately (e.g. lap times in athletics coverage). Alternatively, the information may provide viewers with a broader understanding of the event they are watching (e.g. match statistics in a football game).

The note also warns that credits should be brief and secondary so as not to promote the information provider. In addition, Ofcom states that unique products from a specific provider, available for sale and targeted at viewers, are not a legitimate form of technical information (e.g. betting odds), in contrast to matters of objective fact concerning the sports events, which in theory a number of companies could provide (e.g. a scoreboard).

Whereas betting odds would not constitute technical information, Ofcom explains that there may be limited circumstances in which references to odds within a programme may be justified. For example, where there is a close association between a sporting event and betting which is longstanding and uncontroversial (e.g. horseracing). In such cases, betting odds from a range of providers or an average of those odds should be made available to viewers, to avoid promotion of, or giving undue prominence to, any one provider. To read Ofcom’s Note to Broadcasters on References to providers of technical information in sports programming on television, published in Issue 321 of its Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin (23 January 2017), click here.