28 February 2006The Sydney Morning Herald / AAP
A free-to-air television watchdog has prevented the broadcast of commercials for an Adelaide solar shop, in which a prominent scientist describes climate change as the "greatest threat to mankind".
The Commercials Advice regulatory body had initially approved two 30-second advertisements for The Solar Shop - an Adelaide store that sells solar electricity products.
One of the ads, sponsored by the Nine Network, features prominent South Australian scientist Tim Flannery describing climate change as the "greatest threat to mankind".
The other commercial ends with the words "Solar Shop - we're doing Kyoto anyway".
The two advertisements were supposed to air from on Sunday night.
However, Solar Shop managing director Adrian Ferraretto said less than 48 hours prior to the planned broadcast, the store was notified by email that Commercials Advice did not want them screened.
"They said we want you to pull them because it says ... that climate change is the greatest threat to mankind," Mr Ferraretto said.
"They said `you can't say it's the greatest threat to mankind', there's no proof...'."
But Mr Ferraretto said he felt the real problem may have been the statement about Kyoto.
"We wonder if that statement has ruffled some feathers," he said.
Mr Ferraretto said the explanation the Commercials Advice had provided The Solar Shop with was a "silly reason".
"They're not controversial, they're pretty tame," he said of the commercials.
He said it was hard to challenge Dr Flannery's claims that climate change was the greatest threat to mankind.
"You've got nuclear power, nuclear war and stuff like that," Mr Ferraretto said.
"Climate change is going to affect everybody."
He said the Commercials Advice had advised The Solar Shop they could air the ads if they made changes to Dr Flannery's comments.
"They want us to say it's a big threat as opposed to the greatest threat," he said.
"We will if we have to but we'd prefer not to."
He said it was frustrating that the ads would now not be aired, as the store had already bought $50,000 worth of commercials.
"We're just a small business here in South Australia," Mr Ferraretto said.
"We don't have the marketing budget of Toyota ... it costs money for us to go and change things especially something so trivial ... ."
Comment was being sought from Commercials Advice.
