Channel 4 billboards banned

BILLBOARD posters for the Channel 4 programme Six Feet Under have been banned after complaints that they were "offensive, shocking and unsuitable for children".

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the posters, in the style of cosmetic adverts, but featuring models posing as corpses, were likely to cause offence.

However, a magazine poster showing Graham Norton, the comedian and television presenter, naked and holding a picture of Pope John Paul II escaped censure after the ASA said it was not offensive to Catholics

One of two Six Feet Under posters featured a man’s head and torso with a bottle labelled: "In Eternum + embalming fluid".

Nine people complained to the ASA about the posters for the programme, which features a family of funeral directors, although Channel 4 argued they were objecting to death itself rather than the imagery.

The ASA said the Time Out poster of Norton had upset some Catholics, but was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence. Elsewhere, a car advert featuring wiggling bottoms was banned from daytime and early evening TV because young children were copying it.

The Renault Megane advert showed people gyrating their bottoms in time to a tune which repeated the line "shakin’ that ass". The Independent Television Commission said the advert had "sexual connotations" for some viewers.

And Maserati UK, the car manufacturer, was criticised by the watchdog for an advert which "portrayed speed in a way that might encourage motorists to drive irresponsibly". The poster, which ran as part of a 12-week campaign for the Maserati range, pictured a car travelling along a road with the headline: "2pm Sunday, Snowdonia".

It added: "For a few breathtaking hours, there is nothing else. Just you and the singular note of the V8 engine, the roar of 390bhp, the exhilaration of the open road, the absolute refinement of a supercar that is quite simply matchless. You drive like there’s no tomorrow."

The ASA upheld a complaint against the company and said: "You drive like there’s no tomorrow" was likely to be interpreted as encouragement to drive at high speed.