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TV Advertising to Children in Brazil
Author: Pedro Carneiro, Veirano Advogados
The prominent role that TV has on Brazilian homes is obvious, and is considered, especially among the less economically favored families, one of the main channels of access to information, culture, leisure and entertainment. Worldwide, Brazilian children are among the ones who devote more time to television, and in a considerable part of these families the children have a preponderant role in the selection of the TV programs to watch. Within this scenario, the issue of regulating advertisement on TV merits considerable focus, especially when we observe that, in countries such as Sweden, TV advertising for children has been completely banned.
Even without such an extreme measure, in Brazil the threats to very young minds is not different, and many segments in the society have started to mobilize to discuss and regulate this issue. After the praise-worthy edition of the ethical advertising rules by the Conselho Nacional de Auto-Regulamentação Publicitária – CONAR (National Council for the Self-Regulation of Advertising), addressed in our previous article, since 2001 the House of Representatives has discussed Bill number 5291/2001, which is authored by Representative Luiz Carlos Hauly, and creates specific rules to prevent advertising abuses against children in our country.
Such an initiative is also closely followed by the Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária – ANVISA (National Agency of Sanitary Inspection), which has recently put up for public scrutiny, a proposal for a resolution that rules on food advertising, with special focus on advertising for children. If approved, the rules will be in force for meals with high content of sugar, saturated and Trans fat, sodium and beverages with low nutritional value. The rules target advertising in newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, the Internet and even electronic games and sports competitions.
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