Tonight was the first occasion that an advertiser sponsored a terrestrial channel for a few hours (as opposed to just a programme) since the UK television sponsorship regulations were relaxed by Ofcom at the start of this year.

Car maker Fiat sponsored Channel Five for some of the evening in order to mark the launch of its new small car, the 500. The sponsorship package included a special ident as well as sponsorship credits elsewhere, together with an advert interstatial featuring both the 'five' logo and a picture of the car.

A sign of things to come? Very probably, because lots of commercial channels tend to get viewed less frequently nowadays, therefore 'ordinary' commercials may get less exposure than they used to, so the greater the commercial presence the more likely the sponsor (and its message) will get noticed.

However there's always the risk of clashing sponsors; case in point being US crime dramas on Five which are currently sponsored by another car company (Kia). Plus of course if a channel is sponsored by one particular company then they wouldn't want any of its rivals showing advertisements at the same time.

And channel sponsorship is obviously more expensive than a single commercial, therefore such a thing is more likely to be reserved for special occasions (such as product launches) as opposed to being used on an everyday basis, although specialist channels could be co-funded by a particularly relevant sponsor.