From Kate McMahon in
Broadcast:
ITV commercial boss Rupert Howell has admitted the broadcaster is "scrapping for its life" as part of an impassioned eleventh-hour plea for product placement to be permitted in the UK...
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is finalising a review of the European Union Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which covers product placement. The review is due in the final week of this month.
Also in Broadcast, Kate McMahon reports that:
ITV has pledged that more than £10m of drama currently on its shelves [and originally planned for broadcast in 2008] will be aired later this year – despite industry fears that some of the shows would never see the light of day.
Far better to have product placement than those dumb old days when bottles and cans always had to be turned away from the camera, and cornflake packets had sticky tape obscuring the Kelloggs name. Branded goods are part of production design; why let them have that screen presence for nothing?
ReplyDeleteWho would govern such a ruling, though? Would Quatermass and the Kwality Quorn Burger really be worth saving the station for.....? Far better to merge BBC and ITV, splitting the licence fee, perhaps
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