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Sexy, vulgar ads banned
26/09/2007 07:22 - (SA)
Beijing - China on Tuesday stepped up its campaign to clean up the airwaves with new regulations to ban sexually suggestive advertising on radio and television, state media said.
"All stations are prohibited from broadcasting commercials and programmes involving drugs, sex-related health supplements, drugs for sexually transmitted diseases, sex toys, as well as vulgar ads for breast enhancement and female underwear," Xinhua news agency said, citing a government circular.
"Commercials featuring sexually suggestive language or behaviour or featuring scantly dressed women were 'detrimental to society'," the circular issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said.
Since the administration began a campaign to clean up China's state-run airwaves in July, a total of 1 466 advertisements, involving two billion yuan ($267m), have been yanked from broadcasts, the report said.
Morally depraving
"Sexually suggestive ads and bad ads not only mislead consumers seriously and harm public health, but are socially corrupting and morally depraving, and directly discredit the radio and TV industry," the circular said.
Radio and television stations that failed to monitor their commercials would face "severe penalties", it added.
Last month, China banned a blood-spattered genre of reality TV shows where patients undergo sex-change operations and cosmetic surgery live in front of mass audiences.
The "exhibitionist" programmes served the sole purpose of boosting viewer numbers and did not have a positive impact on society, an earlier circular by the administration said.
Following more than 25 years of economic reforms, China's media has burst forth with colourful content aimed at appeasing a public ravenous for racy stories and titillating programming - despite the efforts of puritanical communist censors.
The new rules come ahead of a crucial Communist Party Congress next month that aims to boost China's one party rule and polish up the party's image as the arbiters of social morality.
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