Show's brand plugs breached rules

A Channel 5 show presented by Myleene Klass breached broadcasting rules when former GMTV presenter Ben Shephard appeared as a guest and promoted Nestle cereals, watchdog Ofcom has ruled.

Ben spent six minutes of an eight-minute interview on the weekday magazine show, Live With Myleene, talking about eating a healthy breakfast.

He talked about a Nestle advertising campaign which he was fronting, plugged its website, and discussed swapping breakfast choices for Nestle cereals.

The star's comments included telling viewers that "our nutritionist looked at the swaps that I could make, if I had some Cheerios or some Nestle cereal, Shreddies for example, I was saving about 200 calories a day".

Channel 5 acknowledged that Ben made more than one reference to Nestle and referred to some of the company's cereal brands by name.

It said that he had been "made very aware of the issues relating to undue prominence.

"In particular, he was told verbally and in writing that 'he could only make one reference to his campaign relationship with Nestle'," it said.

"The production team considered that the guest understood what was being asked of him, particularly given that he is a presenter with many years of live television experience," Ofcom said.

As there was no editorial justification for the three references in the live show, broadcast in May, they breached the broadcasting code on the promotion and undue prominence of products, services and trademarks in programming, the regulator said.

Different presenters take it in turns to front the Channel 5 show, Live With...