KEY POINTS:
Food manufacturers have sharply reduced their television advertising of unhealthy foods during the "children's" viewing times, in anticipation of a new voluntary code coming into effect in July.
The Television Broadcasters Council yesterday released further details of the anti-obesity code that aims to restrict ads for unhealthy foods and drinks for up to three hours and five minutes a day during what TV stations call the school-age children's programming times.
These time slots - on TV2, TV3 and Maori Television - are narrower than the periods during which many children actually watch TV.
The council's chief executive, Justine Wilkinson, said that since the first information was made public about the code last year, "a number of big food companies have been pulling out of that zone anyway - voluntarily, leading up to the release [yesterday] that sets our timetable".
Television chiefs have told MPs considering the Public Health Bill, which would empower the Government to ban all TV advertising of unhealthy food, that doing so would deprive TVNZ, TV3 and C4 of $36 million a year in total.
McDonald's spent $21.4 million on all kinds of advertising in 2005 - when $4.7 million was spent on advertising vegetables.
A study in 2005 found that about 75 per cent of food ads during children's TV zones were for foods high in fat and/or sugar.
To decide if a food can be advertised in the schoolchildren's zones under the new code, the Television Commercial Approvals Bureau or a nutrition consultant will assess it against the Health Ministry's "everyday", "sometimes" and "occasional" classification of foods and drinks and, if it fails that test, against a transtasman calculation of whether an item is healthy or unhealthy.
The code has been greeted with scepticism by public-health groups.
Obesity Action Coalition director Leigh Sturgiss said it would do only half the job because so many children watched TV outside the hours in which the restrictions would apply.
"Over 30 per cent of children are still watching TV at 8.30 at night ... Kids' favourite TV shows are The Simpsons, Spongebob Squarepants, Shortland Street and Home and Away. Only Spongebob Squarepants is shown during the recognised children's viewing time."
* NEW RESTRICTIONS
A new voluntary code to restrict the television advertising of unhealthy foods to children starts progressively between July 1 and October 1.
It applies only during the television zones for children aged 5-13, currently defined by broadcasters as:
TV2, Monday-Friday 7-8.35am, 3.30-5pm, Saturday 7-10am. TV3 Monday-Friday 3-4.30pm, Saturday 7-9am. Maori Television Monday-Friday 4.30-6pm, Saturday 5-6pm.
Advertising is already banned during the preschool children's viewing zones and on Sunday mornings.
McDonald's will withdraw its children's-zone advertisements for chicken nuggets Happy Meals because chicken nuggets are deemed an "occasional" food.
