PARENTS claimed a victory over the Crazy Frog after the High Court upheld a ruling that will banish the annoying ringtone advertisements until after the watershed.

The company behind the mobile telephone ringtone breached advertising restrictions by appealing to children without making clear the true cost of its products.

Almost 300 people complained that Jamba!, based in Germany, did not make clear that its mobile phone services were offered on a weekly, subscription basis rather than a one-off payment. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that children had unwittingly run up large phone bills and ruled that the commercials cannot now be shown before 9pm.

The Crazy Frog advertisements were shown on 40,000 occasions during a single month on British television. The post-9pm restriction is intended to place it outside of children’s viewing hours.

Jamba! sought a High Court injunction to prevent the ruling from being made public until an independent review of the ASA decision, sought by the company, reaches its conclusion. But Mr Justice Lloyd-Jones said that the public interest was best served by publishing the adjudication now.

The ASA had previously criticised the commercials for their failure to make clear that the £3 weekly charge was not for one ringtone but a weekly subscription. The watchdog has found that the on-screen warning “16-plus and bill payer’s permission” was insufficient to stop children subscribing to the service via text message.

Jamba!, which has sold 11 million Crazy Frog ringtones, argued that its advertisements were not aimed at children and produced evidence that the target purchaser of a Crazy Frog ringtone was aged between 18 and 29.

The company said that a ringtone was “a fun item, of no harm to adults or children, and no more expensive than many small items on which a child may spend pocket money”.

But the ASA said that the characters had a “strong appeal” to children and that “peer pressure”, and a No 1 Crazy Frog single, had exacerbated the phenomenon.

Christopher Graham, ASA Director General, said: “Many of the people who complained to us are parents whose children have received large phone bills.

“This ruling sends a warning to the whole industry that ads for ringtones and other mobile phone subscription services must not appeal to under-16s.”

Jamba! remained confident that its appeal would succeed.Markus Berger de Leon, the chief operating officer of Jamba!, said: “Our move to modify ads demonstrates that we are properly marketing to a range of consumers who enjoy our content.”

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The regulator also reported that so far this year there were 329 complaints about the Crazy Frog