BAI to Allow Product Placement in Irish TV

The Cush

From the IFTN website today

BAI to Allow Product Placement in Irish TV
10 Mar 2011 :

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has announced its decision to permit paid product placement on Irish television. The change is one of a number to be included in the BAI’s revised General and Children’s Commercial Communications Codes which will take effect from Monday, May 2nd 2011.

The changes made to the document include the permission for use of paid product placement in specific genres including films (cinema releases and films made for television); sport; dramas (excluding docu-dramas) and light entertainment programmes (excluding certain types of talk/chat shows). Paid product placement will also be allowed on all television services including community, commercial and public service broadcasters.
Furthermore sponsors of television programmes will, from May 2nd, be permitted to place their products and services in programmes that they sponsor, except in the case of children’s programmes. Product placement will not be permitted in children’s programmes and talk/chat shows containing more than 20% of news and current affairs content on a regular basis.

The general and specific rules of the BAI’s commercial communications codes will apply to all product placement arrangements. The new rules came about as a result of a public consultation completed last January and BAI Chief Executive, Michael O’Keeffe commented on the new arrangement, saying: “The way in which Irish audiences watch television is changing and it is therefore appropriate that the BAI updates its rules to permit paid product placement.

”At the same time, paid product placement must be strongly regulated to ensure that the integrity and independence of programmes and programme makers is maintained. It is for this reason that paid product placement will be prohibited in a range of programmes and will only be acceptable when it complies with a broad range of rules intended to protect the interests of the audiences”.

Stipulations of the new agreement will mean that broadcasters will have to notify audiences that a programme they are watching contains product placement and will also have to list, in the show’s end credits, the names of companies that have provided products and services included in a programme. They will also now be required to include a written announcement before such programmes and to promote to audiences, on- and off-air, the measures they use to notify audiences that a programme contains product placement.

http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4283709&tpl=archnews&force=1

Press Release from the BAI, "revised Codes will be published in the coming weeks and will take effect from Monday 2nd May 2011".

Media Release
Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
Release Date: 9th March 2011

BAI ANNOUNCES DECISION TO PERMIT PAID PRODUCT PLACEMENT ON IRISH TELEVISION

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (“BAI”) has today (9th March) announced the decision to permit paid product placement on Irish television. The change is one of a number to be included in the BAI’s revised General and Children’s Commercial Communications Codes. The revised Codes will be published in the coming weeks and will take effect from Monday 2nd May 2011. The changes have been made following consideration of submissions received on foot of a public consultation completed last January.
Commenting on the changes to be introduced, BAI Chief Executive Michael O’Keeffe said, “The way in which Irish audiences watch television is changing and it is therefore appropriate that the BAI updates its rules to permit paid product placement. At the same time, paid product placement must be strongly regulated to ensure that the integrity and independence of programmes and programme makers is maintained. It is for this reason that paid product placement will be prohibited in a range of programmes and will only be acceptable when it complies with a broad range of rules intended to protect the interests of the audiences”.

Summary of decisions

Paid Product Placement
The BAI has decided to:

 Permit paid product placement in the following programme genres: films (cinema releases and films made for television), sport, dramas (excluding docu-dramas) and light entertainment programmes (excluding certain types of talk/chat shows);
 Permit paid product placement on all television services i.e. community, commercial and public service broadcasters;
 Permit sponsors of television programmes to place their products and services in programmes that they sponsor, except in the case of children’s programmes.

Restrictions:
The BAI has decided to:

 Prohibit paid product placement in all other programme genres, including children’s programmes and talk/chat shows containing more than 20% of news and current affairs content on a regular basis;
 Apply the general and specific rules of the BAI’s commercial communications codes to all product placement arrangements.

Audience Notification
The BAI has decided to:

 Require broadcasters to comply with additional obligations relating to the manner in which audiences are notified that a programme they are watching contains product placement. Broadcasters are currently required to display a logo containing the letters PP before, and during, programmes containing product placement. They must also list in the end credits the names of companies that have provided products and services included in a programme.
 They will now be required to include a written announcement before such programmes and to promote to audiences, on- and off-air, the measures it uses to notify audiences that a programme contains product placement.

-ENDS-

http://www.bai.ie/pdfs/20110309_baipr_pp_bf.pdf

watty

It shouldn't be allowed.

Sam Russell

Who benefits from product placement? Is the viewer the beneficiary? I don't think so! Why are commercial entities always accommodated by the BCI at the expense of the general public?

RTE is being restricted with respect to advertising on RTE News Now, and are forced to turn on the second mux before it is needed. The views of Sky are taken account of, but they do not pay Irish VAT.

Are we back to the days of Ray Burke. Who benefits from any of this?

Sam Russell

There was an article on this in the Sunday Times. It basically was saying it was necessary here to have product placement because it is everywhere else. It quoted that 30% of Holywood output feature Apple products.

It would appear to be an attempt to help independent producers/production companies to get another income stream, since they do not have any slice of the advertising revenue.

I cannot see any benefit for the viewer, and consequently, it should not be allowed. It is impossible to put a limit in what is allowed and what is not. How many times have you heard - '****** in association with TV3, bring you the wonderful oprtunity to win ******* by answering this question - New York is known as 1. The big Apple, 2. The big Easy, 3. The big yawn.'

This message is brought to you by ......., who paid hansomely for the privilege.

david23

It's an EU directive giving the go-ahead and guidelines for product placement in all member states. It was introduced in the UK on 1 March, following a consultation by Ofcom.

Denmark is the only EU member state that has not introduced (or has no plans to introduce) product placement.

Sam Russell

The EU has a lot of policies and directive that would appear to have the main objective of putting public money into private pockets.

We had the directive that Ireland had to introduce competition in the electricity market. This meant the ESB, a non-profit organisation had to increase prices to allow private companies compete with them to bring down prices. We have had the private hospitals opening up on public sites to compete with the public hospitals.

Now we have product placement to increase the level of advertising because people have PVRs that allow them to zip through the adverts and miss them.

Why do we have to put up with this? We do not benefit by it.

watty

No, that was the FF interpretation of the EU doctrines.

BrianD

Sam Russell wrote: »

How many times have you heard - '****** in association with TV3, bring you the wonderful oprtunity to win ******* by answering this question - New York is known as 1. The big Apple, 2. The big Easy, 3. The big yawn.'

This message is brought to you by ......., who paid hansomely for the privilege.

Technically that would be a paid for promotion that is allowed and quite common. Product placement would be after saying the above spiel, the presenter turns to camera and takes a swig out of a well known brand of cola. Label out of course!

BrianD

Obviously there's a lot of 'product placement' in both TV and movies that we'll never know if it was paid for or not. There was a lot of clever placement in, for example, Mad Men which didn't interfere with the story line (though being an advertising drama may have helped that). Heienken, seem to pop up regularly in US dramas by accident or design.

Music videos are using it now especially now that when the video is served online that digital advertising can be embedded so viewers can click on any item featured in the video for more info. There is a funny moment in a Britney Spears video where a brand of phone is featured and onscreen you can see a calendar entry with the description "12:00 - Product Placement meeting".

What I do find truely awful, is the style product placement in The Apprentice on TV3 where it directly affected the quality of the show. The contestants now had to do tasks in a Joe Blogs store or they got a prize of some trinket from Joe Bloggs. This was dreadful stuff and really takes away from the enjoyment of the show.

Product placement can be done well and in an era where people skim through the adverts on DVR's or download the shows illegally minus the adverts, product placement is going to become more prevalent. Somebody has to pay for the standards of TV production that we have to come to enjoy.

Sam Russell

BrianD wrote: »

Product placement can be done well and in an era where people skim through the adverts on DVR's or download the shows illegally minus the adverts, product placement is going to become more prevalent. Somebody has to pay for the standards of TV production that we have to come to enjoy.

I thought the licence paid for this.

We now have to endure text and logos on players shirts telling us what to buy, and this for players who have huge incomes both from playing and from sponsors. Does it affect their game? I do not know, but the frequency with which they drink from a blue bottle with the label facing the camera might.

enda1

Never understood why it wasn't allowed. Roll on capitalism I say!

BrianD

Sam Russell wrote: »

I thought the licence paid for this.

No, RTE is dual funded - licence fee and commercial advertising - while TV3 is commercially funded through the sale of airtime only.

We now have to endure text and logos on players shirts telling us what to buy, and this for players who have huge incomes both from playing and from sponsors. Does it affect their game? I do not know, but the frequency with which they drink from a blue bottle with the label facing the camera might.

Well the money has to come from somewhere! Leaving aside personal endorsements, the pay that soccer players get would come from a variety of club income - money from TV rights, team sponsorship, merchandise sales etc. There is a bit of a vicious circle here - players demand big salaries because of the money made by TV companies, clubs look for more money from the Tv companies because they have to pay the players ...

watty

Someone cynically said that TV only exists to sell advertising space. I'd like somehow to make TV a bit better than that.

I think subtle well done product placement is evil. Much worse than obvious Placement, which is MUCH worse than Adverts.

IMO there should only be adverts between programs on Licence Fee funded TV, and not at all on pay TV. Sky only gets about 18% of its profits from Advertising.

Sam Russell

BrianD wrote: »

Well the money has to come from somewhere! Leaving aside personal endorsements, the pay that soccer players get would come from a variety of club income - money from TV rights, team sponsorship, merchandise sales etc. There is a bit of a vicious circle here - players demand big salaries because of the money made by TV companies, clubs look for more money from the Tv companies because they have to pay the players ...

Is that not the same with product placement. It starts with a logo on a mug of coffee. Then the actor says 'I would love a cup of ...brand... coffee.' Then the actor would say ' I would love a cup of ...brand... coffee, it really taste good, and is made with 100% aribico beans from Costa Lot' and eventually the actor would say ' I would love a cup of ...brand... coffee, it really taste good, and is made with 100% aribico beans from Costa Lot, and you can only get it at Snorealot coffee house'.

Where does all this end? We have already seen this taken beyond reasonable on the TV3 version of The Apprentice where each week they had to invent a new way of placing the sponsors product on a TV show.

If it paid for, then something more than just display is required. Advertisers are quite sophisticated in what they want and can be quite subtle in creating a 'lifestyle' message for their product.

BrianD

Sam Russell wrote: »

Is that not the same with product placement. It starts with a logo on a mug of coffee. Then the actor says 'I would love a cup of ...brand... coffee.' Then the actor would say ' I would love a cup of ...brand... coffee, it really taste good, and is made with 100% aribico beans from Costa Lot' and eventually the actor would say ' I would love a cup of ...brand... coffee, it really taste good, and is made with 100% aribico beans from Costa Lot, and you can only get it at Snorealot coffee house'.

Where does all this end? We have already seen this taken beyond reasonable on the TV3 version of The Apprentice where each week they had to invent a new way of placing the sponsors product on a TV show.

If it paid for, then something more than just display is required. Advertisers are quite sophisticated in what they want and can be quite subtle in creating a 'lifestyle' message for their product.

The difference is subtle. I don't think it would surprise anyone that the brand on a soccer players jersey is paid for. The fact that he happens to hold a certain energy drink in his hand at a post match interview may not be as obvious.

BrianD

Actually, I should have said the difference is subtle or incredible blunt if you are a certain Irish commercial TV station!!

Sam Russell

BrianD wrote: »

Actually, I should have said the difference is subtle or incredible blunt if you are a certain Irish commercial TV station!!

Which station would that be now?:D