This is the kind of thing I’ve been waiting until I was 30 to do. Oh yes, it seemed that the only folk who made a complaint over a tv advert or programme were those no-life, middle aged know it all’s with nothing better to do.
Granted, I did have something better to do, but now that you can complain online I decided to give it a whirl.
The offending advert is the current campaign that Channel 4 have going to publicise their current line up of U.S. sitcoms. This would normally be fine – I do happen to watch a couple of those recycled U.S. sitcoms, however, this advert they have makes fun of the Police Could You? campaign. I think it’s in very poor taste to parody a very serious recruitment effort – the police are obviously struggling for numbers and trivialising their recruitment drive with Keith Harris (of all people – why not just use bloody Orville!?) is ill advised at best.
So I complained.
Not sure how I feel about it now – kind of glad I made the effort in a way, but a little dismayed that I let a tv advert bug me to the point where I complained. The reason I done it was probably an article on Jeremy‘s site a few months back which brought to my attention another example of poor behaviour on the part of Channel 4.
The ITC have already acknowledged my complaint and will apparently keep me notified of what happens as a result. As is the case with these things, it would take a few more folk than me to complain in order for anything major to happen, but at least I made a stand for once.