Pope’s Picture Gets TV Operator in Trouble

Hungarian television operator Magyar RTL, 49%-owned by Luxembourg-based CLT UFA, said it will appeal a ban on using a photo of the pope in an ad and may sue the advertising watchdog that made the ruling. The poster, promoting the programs of Magyar RTL’s commercial channel, RTL Klub, shows the pope yawning above the message “RTL Klub--a little intimacy every evening.” The Consumer Protection Authority fined Magyar RTL after the National Advertising Authority deemed the advertisement illegal on the grounds that using the picture without the pope’s approval “offended the individual’s rights to privacy or reverence.” The authority was acting in response to a complaint lodged last month by the chairman of the Holy See’s communication committee who was visiting Budapest at the invitation of the Hungarian Advertising Assn.