The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has issued a Consultation on Product Placement on Television. According to the DCMS, "the purpose of this consultation is to seek views from stakeholders and all interested parties on whether product placement should be allowed on television." The deadline for responses is Friday, 8 January 2010.
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Full Article
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has issued a Consultation on Product Placement on Television. According to the DCMS, "the purpose of this consultation is to seek views from stakeholders and all interested parties on whether product placement should be allowed on television." The deadline for responses is Friday, 8 January 2010.
Background
DCMS previously concluded a consultation in 2008 as part of its consultation on the EU Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, which allows Member States, if they so wish, to introduce product placement within certain limits. At the time, the arguments for and against product placement on television put forward in response to that consultation were finely balanced. The Government then concluded that the balance of argument was against changing current UK regulation in order to permit UK television broadcasters to include product placement in their programmes. A Parliamentary statement to that effect was issued on 11 March 2009.
The Government is now reconsidering that position and is tending towards permitting product placement on UK television, subject to safeguards. However, there remain particular concerns about the potential health issues associated with promoting particular types of goods by means of product placement.
Contents of the consultation
The consultation is seeking stakeholders' views on the following:
- what, if any, viewer and other safeguards there should be additional to those required by the AVMS Directive?; and
- how those additional safeguards should be imposed – by law, or by means of the Ofcom Code?
In particular, the Government is interested in updated and additional information following that provided in last year's consultation.
The individual topics for which the consultation requests
feedback include:
- commercial advantages of product placement;
- permitted genres under the EU AVMS Directive;
- children and children's programmes;
- editorial independence; undue prominence; direct encouragement to purchase;
- tobacco, alcohol, HFSS foods, gambling;
- monitoring possible effects on health;
- terms of trade between broadcasters and programme producers;
- signalling of product placement to viewers;
- negative placement; and placement of "look-alike" products.
What the consultation does not cover
The consultation does not deal with product placement in video-on-demand services, in films or programmes acquired from outside the UK or in prop placement, which concerns the loan or provision of products and goods or services to broadcasters at a reduced rate or free of charge.
Deadline and how to view the consultation
The closing date for responses is Friday, 8 January 2010. To view the consultation, please click here.
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
Law-Now information is for general purposes and guidance only. The information and opinions expressed in all Law-Now articles are not necessarily comprehensive and do not purport to give professional or legal advice. All Law-Now information relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its original publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments.
The original publication date for this article was 13/11/2009.
