21 replies to this topic

[Victor]

I was recently surprised to learn that BBC refused to broadcast the 1976 F1 championship. The reason? The fact that the Surtees team was sponsored by Durex condoms, and BBC thought their logo inadequate to show on TV. So, the Brits could not watch a great F1 season with a British driver fighting for the title. However, for the last GP, in Japan, since James Hunt could become champion, as he did, BBC decided to broadcast the race. The irony is that Alan Jones managed to bring his Surtees home in 4th place, meaning that Durex may have had a decent share of TV time.

Does anyone around remember this?

 

 

[absinthedude]

At that point in time, it was illegal to advertise condoms or even female period/sanitary products in the UK. That is how sexually backwards we were. And it took the AIDS crisis in the mid 80s to change any of that. 

 

The BBC felt that broadcasting images of a car with Durex sponsorship might break the law. It probably didn't, but it was a genuine concern.

[Alan Lewis]

Vaguely remembered us talking about this before (though it's a bit disconcerting to find it was a dozen years ago)...

https://forums.autos...1976-78-period/

You will particularly enjoy the recollections on page 2 from Simon Taylor recounting how he came to be the Beeb's radio commentator for Fuji.

There will be a great many of us here who remember that season and the "Durex controversy". As a 12/13 year old schoolboy my reaction at the time would probably have been of the "snigger, chortle" variety (predating Beavis and Butthead by decades), though as a West Midlander I also remember Jasper Carrott working it into his routine: "Saw a picture of the car in the pits with a puncture. Makes you think".

Your comment about the Beeb boycotting the whole season wouldn't be quite right, though. As the above thread relates, F1 on British TV was a rare treat back then and the BBC wouldn't have shown all the races anyway, nor would ITV. Nothing was shown live, just highlights, and several races would have no coverage at all (whereas the the Fuji highlights were shown on both channels when they suddenly realised Hunt might be champion).

Edited by Alan Lewis, 03 January 2024 - 21:24.

[Glengavel]

At that point in time, it was illegal to advertise condoms or even female period/sanitary products in the UK. That is how sexually backwards we were. And it took the AIDS crisis in the mid 80s to change any of that. 

 

The BBC felt that broadcasting images of a car with Durex sponsorship might break the law. It probably didn't, but it was a genuine concern.

 

Was it actually illegal? Durex had used the image of the car on an advertising hoarding with the caption "the small family car".

 

https://slotracer.on...nt.php?aid=3899

 

I think the BBC were simply fearful of the wrath of Mary Whitehouse, self-appointed arbiter of the nation's morals.

[ensign14]

The Beeb was never comfortable with advertising in sport, hence when they said they were not going to read out sponsors at the three day eventing, there were suddenly horses named things like Sanyo Music Centre.

 

There's a story that F5000 Richard Scott was told to cover up the Durex stickers on his car when the BBC was covering a Euro championship race at Silverstone, or else the race would not be on Grandstand, and he reluctantly had to do so, waving goodbye perhaps to a sponsor bonus.

 

And as luck would have it, for the one and only time in his F5000 career, Scott went and won.  So the BBC showed the podium ceremony.  With nobody noticing that, although he had covered up the Durex wordmarks on his car, he hadn't thought to do so on his overalls...

[AJCee]

I think that you are both correct Ensign and Glendale, it wasn’t a formal ban, just self-censorship to placate the ‘blue-rinse brigade’ especially its militant wing.

Small point of order, the Sanyo-named horses were ridden by Harvey Smith and clan in showjumping rather than eventing.

It always confused me how the cars at the Grand Prix were denuded of sponsor marks yet the billboards of the John Player or Marlboro sponsored event were clearly visible. Likewise the sponsorship in things like the Benson and Hedges Cup and John Player League (cricket) where the commentators repeated the name ad infinitum.

[john aston]

The BBC wasn't some prudish outlier, but reflected a society which was struggling to cope with rapidly changing sexual norms. Durex was the perfect case in point- it made a widely used product , so successful that the brand name became synonymous with the product - like Portakabin or Hoover . But although the era featured topless girls in the Sun newspaper everyday, and streaking was a phenomenon that hot summer , middle class Britain was still prudish and conformist , struggling to accept that even nice girls did it and that you wouldn't burn in the fiery pit of hell if you moved in with your girlfriend . Humour was still of the wink wink smut genre, gay men rarely came out and sexism was rife. 

 

It seems ludicrous now  - and to anyone with liberal views it was crazy then , but although it was apparently just fine tor have Penthouse Pets draped over your car it wasn't fine at all to advertise birth control . To be frank , motorsport  has always been pretty shabby when it comes to women - Hawaiian Tropic and BTCC girls trussed up like turkeys , drag racing back up girls being leered at by old men? Spare me .  

[Henri Greuter]

Makes you wonder how other sponsors within F1 (or teams with othre sponsers for that matter) feld about Surtees and D###X as being the reason the lost out on free advertisement opportunities.

[Glengavel]

I think that you are both correct Ensign and Glendale, it wasn’t a formal ban, just self-censorship to placate the ‘blue-rinse brigade’ especially its militant wing.

Small point of order, the Sanyo-named horses were ridden by Harvey Smith and clan in showjumping rather than eventing.

It always confused me how the cars at the Grand Prix were denuded of sponsor marks yet the billboards of the John Player or Marlboro sponsored event were clearly visible. Likewise the sponsorship in things like the Benson and Hedges Cup and John Player League (cricket) where the commentators repeated the name ad infinitum.

 

And the Embassy World Snooker Championship, piped into your living room for several hours every night for weeks and weeks.

[absinthedude]

IF memory serves, it was indeed not permitted/illegal to advertise condoms or female period products until the mid 1980s. Certainly on television. Indeed even when that was relaxed, such advertising was only permitted after the 9 o'clock watershed and as recently as 2014 ITV were in trouble for placing condom ads in the breaks during mid afternoon family entertainment. My recollection is that during the AIDS crisis, the government finally realised that advertising condoms would help slow the spread of HIV and adjusted the advertising law to permit advertising of condoms after the watershed. At the same time, they relaxed the utterly ludicrous ban on advertising tampons and pads. 

 

The USA went through something similar, with Courtney Cox famously being the first person to even mention the word "period" in that context on US television sometime in the mid 80s. 

 

We really were *that* prudish and *that* concerned that people might actually....enjoy sex. Self-appointed guardians of the nation's morals such as Mary Whitehouse set us back compared to many of our continental cousins. 

 

The above point about F1 broadcasts being patchy is also relevant. Before Bernie gathered up the TV rights to all the grands prix under the banner of what eventually became FOM, each individual country's host broadcaster owned the rights to that country's race footage. Which meant dealing with something like 16 organisations to get the rights to broadcast all the races. In Britain In those days it was not at all uncommon for BBC to snag a few, ITV would snag a few and the majority didn't get broadcast at all, or might appear as a small segment a week later in Grandstand. Even the British GP wasn't always broadcast live, I think 1976 was one of those years.

 

Incidentally that makes it difficult for race broadcast collectors. I went through a 25+ year period of recording F1 off the TV and swapping/buying material where I could. For some races there appears to be no video footage available even if you have contacts within the telly industry. Occasionally you'll find an organisation like Movietone News put out a film reel on general sale with 10 minutes of footage. Somewhere I have a super 8 film reel of Movetone footage of the first three races of 1976, with Arabic narration because I've still been unable to find the original British version. 

 

However, there will definitely have been truth in the idea that broadcasters in Britain would have had cold feet over the Durex logo. Especially the BBC, who famously used to tape over brand names on products seen on screen and refer to "sticky backed plastic" rather than commit the heinous crime of uttering "Sellotape". 

Edited by absinthedude, 04 January 2024 - 08:43.

[john winfield]

I think it was just prior to the March 1976 Race of Champions that the matter came to a head. A shame in many respects because, although Durex were getting plenty of free advertising because of the ban, Alan Jones had a fantastic drive that day in the Surtees, mixing it with Hunt, Lauda and Watson in a four-way scrap for the lead.

 

As others have mentioned, the BBC was sensitive both to the perceived standards of the time, and to the issues raised by Mary Whitehouse. If Hugh Greene had still been Director General he may have told Whitehouse and her ilk to get stuffed, but Charles Curran was more timid, seemingly less keen to upset political, social and commercial apple carts. 

[FastReader]

However, there will definitely have been truth in the idea that broadcasters in Britain would have had cold feet over the Durex logo. Especially the BBC, who famously used to tape over brand names on products seen on screen and refer to "sticky backed plastic" rather than commit the heinous crime of uttering "Sellotape".

Interestingly, I believe that in Australia at the time "sticky backed plastic", was sold under the trade name "Durex", which probably led Alan Jones to wonder what all the fuss was about.

[Victor]

As

The BBC wasn't some prudish outlier, but reflected a society which was struggling to cope with rapidly changing sexual norms. Durex was the perfect case in point- it made a widely used product , so successful that the brand name became synonymous with the product - like Portakabin or Hoover . But although the era featured topless girls in the Sun newspaper everyday, and streaking was a phenomenon that hot summer , middle class Britain was still prudish and conformist , struggling to accept that even nice girls did it and that you wouldn't burn in the fiery pit of hell if you moved in with your girlfriend . Humour was still of the wink wink smut genre, gay men rarely came out and sexism was rife.

It seems ludicrous now - and to anyone with liberal views it was crazy then , but although it was apparently just fine tor have Penthouse Pets draped over your car it wasn't fine at all to advertise birth control . To be frank , motorsport has always been pretty shabby when it comes to women - Hawaiian Tropic and BTCC girls trussed up like turkeys , drag racing back up girls being leered at by old men? Spare me .

Following your post, see below the cover of one issue of the Italian Playboy magazine from that period.
No comments.

Spoiler

[Spoiler tag because nudity -- Risil]

[nmansellfan]

The BBC's retrospective report on them abandoning coverage of the RoC:

https://www.bbc.co.u...rmula1/35748458

They planned to show highlights on the afternoon of the race, 4.10pm, 14th March '76. I assume it was replaced by something else - I would have loved to hear the announcer's explanation in BBC English of why they weren't showing the highlights!

ITV in the UK did show highlights of Round 2 at Kyalami and the next race at Long Beach, then nothing until the US GP West, the race before Fuji.

Tweaking the topic slightly, I've read in the past it was also the BBC who asked Chapman to tape over the Gold Leaf sailor logo on the 49's at the British GP in '68, otherwise they weren't going to broadcast it, but I'm not sure if my facts have got skewed there as it was ITV that showed the race. Maybe it was the '68 RoC?

Edited by nmansellfan, 04 January 2024 - 20:20.

[opplock]

The BBC's retrospective report on them abandoning coverage of the RoC:

https://www.bbc.co.u...rmula1/35748458

 

 

That report is dated 2016 so 40 years later. The BBC were still maintaining that "a condom manufacturer" was responsible for the race not being televised not their, thankfully, failed attempt to be Britain's religious police. 

 

"It must have been some other buddy, no no child it wasn't me". 

 

I recall reading in Motoring News that the resulting newspaper headlines generated more publicity for Durex than any amount of F1 TV exposure that year would have done. 

[john aston]

Religion wasn't the issue , although it might have been in a Catholic country. As I said above, the BBC might have been the focus of the row , but it reflected prevailing attitudes in the country. It seemed ludicrous then , and even more so now that a broadcaster which had produced such subversive content as TW3 a decade earlier was still tying itself up in knots about an issue few people under 30 gave a damn about. 

 

The soft porn in post #13 epitomises the lazy sexism of the era . Ooh look , it's a girl with no kit on , I'd best buy a pack of Marlboro   

[PayasYouRace]

Religion wasn't the issue…

 All the prudish attitudes mentioned here have their origin in religious beliefs.

[Geoff E]

 All the prudish attitudes mentioned here have their origin in religious beliefs.

 

In fact, 1976 was also the first British GP to have been held on a Sunday.

[LOTI]

I was there..... ah the good old days when you could get in to Silverstone without a pass.... but thats another story! I went to say hello to the Surtees team and John asked me if i would take Mr London Rubber Company for a drink. [no motor homes back then]. I didn't think I could get him in to the BRDC, so I went to the Doghouse Club hospitality suite and they happily gave him food and drink. He, for his part offered babies plastic pants, [no need, my children were older] and of course Marigold rubber gloves..... gratefully accepted. He then asked me if he gave me an anorak would I wear it..... it was quite a warm day, and I said yes..... it was in the back of his car..... purple with a gold Durex across the back. Very stylish! my brief was to go and get in the way, something I am quite good at, and I stuck to my task and wore the pesky thing all day. At the end of the day Mr LRC asked for it back..... cheek. I kept it and on the second to last house move I put it on Ebay and it is now on show in a museum in Japan! They kept asking if it was real, as if I would make something like that!

The following year the Doghouse contacted the LRC and they sent a big box full of Durex which got Selotaped to all the tombola prizes [and were put to various uses on the night] but then, there again is another story!

[Mallory Dan]

Brilliant, Loti! 

[ensign14]

 they sent a big box full of Durex which got Selotaped to all the tombola prizes 

Three reasons why the Beeb would not have shown that...

[Gregor Marshall]

As a slight aside, the BBC did get Bill Blydenstein to cover the Thames Television sponsorship on my late Dad's 'Old Nail' Vauxhall Firenza when shown racing live on Grandstand and that was 1971 to 1973.