10-YEAR-OLD’S COMPLAINT UPHELD BY U.K. AD WATCHDOG

A complaint by a 10-year-old lodged with the British Advertising Standards Authority over a TV commercial for the horror movie Saw 3D has resulted in a ruling barring the ad from being shown again before 9:00 p.m. The boy who filed the complaint said that he viewed the ad at about 8:30 p.m. while watching The Gadget Show, a popular series about technology that airs on Channel 5. It had been approved for earlier airing by Clearcast, which is owned by the U.K.’s largest commercial broadcasters and vets TV ads for them. It had ruled that anyone watching TV after 7:30 p.m. is old enough to “make the distinction that the ad was for a film and therefore clearly based in fantasy.” However, the ASA took note of scenes in the ad showing neck restraints being applied to people in the audience that “linked the scenes from the film with a recognizably real situation” and concluded they were “likely to cause distress to young children.”