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Swiss public broadcaster refuses to air advert for sex toys advent calendar

Swiss public broadcaster SRF has denied an advertising slot to a company selling an advent calendar with sex toys.

Swiss public broadcaster refuses to air advert for sex toys advent calendar
Photo: KateNovikova/Depositphotos

An advert by Swiss online sex toys retailer Amorana has been refused airtime by Swiss public broadcaster SRF. Amorana's advent calendar offers dildos and other sex toys as presents in the calendar, although the products do not feature in the advert.

 
The advert shows a woman dressed as a superhero shoving an advent calendar into her man's arms, after slapping him, and declaring: “This is a great Christmas present.” The advert does not implicitly make any reference to sex or sex toys. 

A spokeswoman for the public broadcaster SRF said the decision was made in consideration for “the moral values” of minority groups that could be sensitive to the content, according to Swiss daily 20 Minutes.  

Amorana's co-founder Alan Frei told The Local his company received the following response from SRF:

“Even if the advertised spot only implies Amorana's offer in this form, the offer is the same. We (SRF) do not want to violate the values and feelings of individual audiences and, for image reasons, we do not want to offer ourselves as an advertising platform for sex paraphernalia.”

READ ALSO: US researcher blasts Swiss magazine's sexist depiction

The broadcaster was accused of double standards though as one of its own shows last year ran a programme called 'Vibrator Test – What Women Like'. Amorana, in a statement, also accused the broadcaster of double standards, asking why SRF broadcasts product tests for vibrators and documentaries on sex toys, but won't allow advertising. 

The Amorana advert will still run on private broadcasters “that don't have a problem with our advert”, Alan Frei, Amorana's co-founder, told The Local by email. 

READ MORE: Swiss broadcaster to cut less jobs than previously announced

 

 

 

 

BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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