Watchdog turns a blind eye to Danish fu*king The Advertising Standards Authority has turned a blind eye to Danish "fucking" after ruling the word isn't particularly offensive in the land of Carlsberg, bacon and Lego. The landmark decision comes in response to a single complaint about an advert for telecoms provider TDC, broadcast on TV3 Denmark, which contained the …
http://asa.org.uk/Regulation-Explained/Europe.aspx
"The ASA’s jurisdiction covers the UK only, so the ASA cannot usually look into complaints about ads published in foreign media or that originated from abroad."
The adjudication linked in the story makes no mention of this being referred to the EASA.
"The ASA’s jurisdiction covers the UK only, so the ASA cannot usually look into complaints about ads published in foreign media or that originated from abroad."
The article clearly notes the ad was broadcast from London, which presumably still falls within the ASA's remit.
Although I would be the first to admit that perhaps (within the EU) the target market should be the deciding factor for jurisdiction...
I suspect the main reason Viasat broadcasts from the UK and not Scandinavia is to get around the strciter advertising rules. In Denmark you can not interrupt a program to show commercials, and the the popular Viasat channels want to show lots of commercials throughout the programme.
Interestingly enough, when Viasat wants to show porn, they have to switch back to a scandinavian transmitter as typically the kind of films shown are fine by Danish rules but not neccesarily so by UK rules.... aham... or so I have been informed. ;)
"in response to a single complaint about an advert"
Why are they wasting time and money for a complaint from a single person?!?
Surely, there should be some kind of point at which something is deemed to have actually offended "people" and not just given some grumpy miserable person with nothing better to do the excuse to write a letter!
Hmmm, I guess this is a letter of complaint so I am a grumpy fecker with nothing better to do!
"Viasat, the company responsible for broadcasting the outrage from its London base, was obliged to explain that "fucking" doesn't have the same impact in Denmark as it does in Blighty."
Get a grip: it doesn't have any impact in Blighty either!
Driving some random spittle-flecked, retentive moron with an inflated sense of entitlement and a permanent need for outrage completely apoplectic doesn't count!
The thread is moderated all right, but the Moderatrix doesn't give a fuck if you fucking swear in your fucking post.
You've actually got to be really nasty/offensive for your comment to get deleted, not just spray a load of swearing in your post. However, it helps if you want to get FoTW!
I can confirm that my fellow countrymen use the f word all the time without giving it much thought. I think it comes from watching too many American action movies.
After moving to the UK I soon discovered that use of this word is seriously frowned upon. I try to warn my Danish friends to avoid this gaffe in the UK.
I have a problem with my daughters, who grew up in the UK, whenever we watch Danish TV or go to Denmark.
We now live in France where the f word is often heard on the radio. The French do not use the word much and don't really understand it. So we found it quite amusing at a recent show in the local music school where some children performed a dance to an american rap song which contained very frequent use of the f and c words! Prime family event!
Many years ago, in the 1970's, I was working at a electronics rep company in Toronto when the president of one of our main suppliers, Wandel & Goltermann, arrived and announced that he was Mr. Fuc* which he pronounced in his mother tongue of German.
The receptionist turned all sorts of red, ran into the Canadian presidents office and told him what had happened.
From that day onward Fuch introduced himself, in North America, as Mr. Fuch which he pronounced similarly to 'much' or 'such'.
Such are the pitfalls of international business!
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