ITV chief Michael Grade to challenge 'perverse' ban on product placement
Product placement has been a 'hot' issue for commercial broadcasters for what seems like a long time - this MediaBlog entry dates back to June 2005 - and by November 2007 had been bolstered by the European Union allowing product placement in programming if a particular member state wanted its broadcasters to do this.
In June 2008 there was a fairly surprising development, namely Culture Secretary Andy Burnham saying that he would oppose any move to allow product placement within UK-originated programming, and this was inevitably followed by a so-called "code of conduct" announced in November by the commercial broadcasters.
However it now appears that the UK's commercial television industry has comprehensively lost its argument for product placement to be allowed within UK-originated productions, therefore it's now easy to assume that just because something is permitted in American (and other foreign) productions doesn't automatically mean that it's acceptable for the UK.
Michael Grade might consider it relatively harmless to allow product placement within ITV drama productions, but such placements are virtually impossible to accommodate without some form of compromise within the drama series itself. Undiscerning ITV viewers may ultimately not mind this but it is still a compromise whichever way you look at it.
Indeed this whole placement issue is perhaps more pertinent for UK productions because they don't have the large budget that some US productions and films have, which in turn may make the potential for their 'corruption' more severe if these productions have to rely more heavily on product placement revenue for their income by comparison.
This argument may have been the clincher for disallowing product placement given the currently good reputation for UK-originated drama both here and (crucially) abroad, though ironically if paid product placement had been permitted for commercial drama productions it would have made BBC productions stand out as being less compromised.
Not allowing product placement also maintains a level playing field in terms of funding for smaller independent productions that don't have a strong prior track record, and external regulation for product placements would be necessary if implemented, which would add further bureaucracy and costs that might wipe out some of the financial benefits.
Plus those much-touted financial benefits would have to come from somewhere, notably taken from the existing marketing budgets of advertisers which have already been slashed as a result of the economic recession.
So my message to Michael Grade is to concentrate on making ITV productions watchable again as opposed to hoping that a magic fairy will come along to fix a sinking ITV plc from its tarnished reputation, pension deficit problem, contract rights renewal issues and regional overheads.
