Channel Ten has been rapped over the knuckles by the regulator ACMA for televising subliminal advertising messages during its telecast of last year's ARIA Awards. So that's that. No more subliminal ads right? Well yes and no...

Media Watch broadcast here


And now for a very slow investigation into something very quick.

Almost a year ago, some observant viewers drew Media Watch's attention to something funny about Channel Ten's broadcast of the ARIA awards.

Next watch the Media Watch story 'Flash Dance' from 2007 regarding Ten's broadcast of the 2007 ARIA Music Awards.

Did you see it? For two frames - about a twelfth of a second - the screen was filled by the logo of one of the ARIA sponsors, the Toyota Yaris.

Here it is in slow motion...

The same technique was used 45 times during the two-hour show, to flash up the logos of various sponsors, including:

KFC, Bigpond and Chupa Chups.

Most of them lasted only one or two frames, making them all but invisible. That's what's called subliminal advertising.

And, as Monica Attard pointed out last November, it appeared to be in clear breach of the Commercial Television Code of Practice, which says that broadcasters should not...






The broadcasting regulator is ACMA - the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

It did in fact receive nine formal complaints about the ARIA broadcast, and last week, after a ten-month investigation, it found that:



Read ACMA's Media Release

Download the full ACMA ruling [2.5MB]

ACMA has slapped Network Ten on the wrist, and told it not to do it again.

Ten has told Media Watch that:



Read Channel Ten's response to Media Watch questions

So that's that, you might think. No more subliminal ads.

Well yes, and no.

Because, after painstaking study, ACMA's come up with a bizarre piece of reasoning.

It's ruled that a two-frame flash like this... is 'near the threshold of normal awareness', and therefore outlawed.

But a three-frame flash - like this... is 'at or above' that threshold.

And in ACMA's world, something that is at or above the threshold isn't near the threshold.

So that this Yaris flash, which appeared later in the ARIA broadcast and lasts six frames, doesn't breach the Commercial TV Code of Practice, and is perfectly OK.

And that worries groups like The Parents Jury, which is lobbying to reduce advertising of junk food to children.



Read The Parents Jury's response to Media Watch questions

They may well be right.

Rove McManus, for example, still likes flashing sponsors' names.



As well as the ARIA awards and his chat show, Rove's company produces a family quiz show for Ten.

Now watch this carefully:



Important is right. Did you see it? Watch the $25,000 graphic spin over when we play it again.



Get it this time? Not an ad for junk food - but for a rather expensive toy: Nintendo DS.

Before ACMA's ruling, Ten might have been worried that that was in breach of the Code of Practice. But not any more.



So expect to see a lot more messages from sponsors flashed up on your screen from now on - and remember they can be as short as this:

If you couldn't read it, download it from our website, and slow it down.