BREAKING. Carte Blanche on M-Net ordered to apologise on-air for its Electro Smart apparatus insert which was described as a timer.

Carte Blanche on M-Net has been ordered to apologise on-air for a story after the weekly investigative magazine show on the South African pay TV broadcaster was found by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) to have "mischaracterised" a device from Electro Smart "as a timer" which is sold as an energy savings device.

According to the BCCSA "a clear statement must be broadcast to the Carte Blanche audience that what they had viewed did not give a balanced picture of the situation".

The BCCSA was asked to, but decided not to impose a fine for the insert which was shown on 14 August 2011. Carte Blanche is a Combined Artists production.

Carte Blanche has indicated that the show will be appealing the decision from the BCCSA and that no apology will be happening, awaiting the appeal of the BCCSA judgement. The show's legal representation tells me that "Carte Blanche will be bringing an application for leave to appeal the judgement. In the meantime, the sanction has been suspended."

The BCCSA in its judgement said: "The respondent [Carte Blanche] must, without comment, and during the first five minutes of the first or the second programme after the issue of this order, broadcast the following statement," says the BCCSA in its findings of the case:

"The Broadcasting Complaints Commission has directed M-Net to broadcast the following statement during the programme:

"In its 2011 insert on the Electro Smart apparatus, which is sold as an electricity saver, Carte Blanche contravened the Broadcasting Code in the following aspects:

1.Carte Blanche failed to obtain available evidence from an expert, which had been provided by Electro Smart's distributors, which would have confirmed the company's assertation that the apparatus does save electricity;

2.Carte Blanche failed to inform viewers fully that a device almost identical to the Electro Smart apparatus had been approved in 1986 by the SABS as an electricity saver;

3.And lastly; a statement was made in the insert that Electro Smart agreements after 2005 were nul and void because they violated the National Credit Act, yet the distributor was not invited to comment on this statement. Had Carte Blanche done so, the distributor would have indicated that the National Credit Act, in his view, were not applicable to the contracts and that the contracts were, indeed, valid."


ALSO READ: Carte Blanche on M-Net appealing the ruling from the Broadcasting Complaints Commission regarding the Electro Smart device.