Broadcasting Act 1990
Before this Act the scope for sponsorship on ITV and Channel 4 had been highly restricted in line with the statutory provision. The 1990 Act incorporates provisions stemming from the 1989 EU Broadcasting Directive and permits sponsorship of all programmes except news and current affairs.
Section 9(1) of the Act requires the Commission to draw up a code, after appropriate consultation and subject to periodic review, which sets standards and practice in the sponsoring of programmes and identifies the methods of sponsorship to be prohibited. The ITC must ensure that its licensees comply with the code although it may make different provisions in the code for different kinds of licensed service.
Sponsorship Code
The first ITC Code of Programme Sponsorship was published in 1991. Revised editions of the code were published in January 1994, March 1997 and Autumn 1998. In Autumn 2000, after extensive consultation, the ITC published a simpler and streamlined sponsorship code (see News Release 71/00). This code, unlike its predecessors, is separated into two parts: Part A contains the rules that apply only to sponsored programmes, Part B is concerned with advertiser involvement in any programme.
Definition. The code defines programme sponsorship in the following terms:
“A Sponsored Programme is a programme that has had some or all of its costs met by a sponsor with a view to promoting its own or another’s name, product or service”
“Costs include any part of the costs connected to the production or transmission of the programme”
“Sponsor is any organisation or person, other than the broadcaster or television producer, who is sponsoring the programme in question with a view to promoting their goods or services. This definition extends to those who are otherwise supplying or funding the programme”
“Name includes trademark, image, activities, or any other direct or indirect commercial interests”
The aim of the code is to protect editorial independence, to limit the intrusion of advertising messages into programmes and to make sponsorships clear and transparent to viewers without reducing creative and commercial flexibility.
The key principles underpinning the regulation of television sponsorship are the:
- maintenance of editorial integrity
- separation of programming from advertising
Prohibitions News and current affairs programmes cannot be sponsored. In most cases, advertisers prohibited from advertising on television are not allowed to sponsor programmes.
Content A sponsor must not influence the content or scheduling of a programme in such a way as to affect the editorial independence and responsibility of the broadcaster. No promotional reference to any advertiser or sponsor, or to any product or service, is permitted within any programme. Part B of the code contains the rules that apply to all television programmes, whether or not they are sponsored. The aim is to restrict the opportunity for commercial influence within programmes, again reinforcing the principle of editorial integrity.
Sponsor credits Part A of the code contains detailed rules on sponsor credits. Sponsored programmes must have either a front or an end credit or both. The rules are designed to make the sponsor’s association with the programme clear to the viewer while not blurring the distinction between programmes and the sponsorship attached to programmes.
Product placement is prohibited by the EU Directive and is therefore illegal in all EU member states. It is defined in the code as “the inclusion of, or reference to, a product or service within the programme in return for payment or other valuable consideration to the programme-maker or ITC licensee (or any representative of associate of either)”.
Undue prominence Rule 8.4 of the ITC Programme Code supports the principle of editorial integrity. This states, “No undue prominence may be given in any programme to a commercial product or service. In particular, any reference to such a product or service must be limited to what can clearly be justified by the editorial requirements of the programme itself”.
Code Compliance
ITC licensees are responsible for the sponsorships they broadcast and they must have their own compliance arrangements to ensure these meet the requirements of the code. The ITC does not generally pre-vet sponsorships but will advise licensees on specific questions of code interpretation. The ITC also produces a regular Sponsorship Update, designed to supplement the information given in the code.
ITC Interventions
Breaches of the ITC Code of Programme Sponsorship are reported in the ITC Programme Complaints and Findings Report and listed in the Sponsorship Update.
The most serious breach to date of the sponsorship code and ‘undue prominence’ rules was for This Morning (ITV) in 1994. The ITC fined Granada £½m for repeated breaches of its programme and sponsorship codes. The edition that prompted the ITC’s action breached the rules that prohibit sponsorship of viewer competitions and those that prohibit undue prominence to particular products or services. The ITC News Release 82/94 and the ITC Programme Complaints and Interventions Report (Oct-Dec 1994) contain details of the This Morning intervention. In September 1999, the ITC imposed a financial penalty of £40,000 on MTV for breaches of the sponsorship and programme codes (see News Release 59/99).
Sponsorship Revenue
Terrestrial television sponsorship income in 2002 accounted for £56m out of a total qualifying revenue of £5614m. Sponsorship has usually accounted for around 1% of commercial television qualifying revenue.
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Sponsorship (£million) 14 34 44 61 63 66 56
Further References
ITC Publications
* ITC Library bibliography: Programme sponsorship
The ITC Code of Programme Sponsorship. Autumn 2000
Sponsorship update (available on the ITC website)
The ITC Code of Advertising Standards, Autumn 2002
ITC guidance note on Electronic imaging systems or “virtual” advertising
ITC Programme Complaints and Findings Report
Sponsorship of children’s programmes. ITC Research. 1996
‘Opportunity knocks?’ in Spectrum. 1994: Summer, 4-5
‘Cracking the Code’ in Spectrum. 1996: Autumn
Leaflet: Advertising and sponsorship on commercial television
April 2003
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