Ofcom: Cross-promotion by television broadcasters

Review of the cross-promotion rules: "Television, and advertising, is changing rapidly. In television, channels aimed at large audiences are complemented by niche channels aimed at smaller audiences with specific editorial interests. The same programmes appear on a variety of different channels, and there is an increasing desire by TV broadcasters to be able to promote their own services, but without using up valuable advertising time. Meanwhile, advertisers are also complementing their mass audience approaches by finding ways of addressing audiences in narrower, more specialist ways, using new forms of advertising and different ways of aligning commercial messages with editorial product.

"The EU directive(-2-) that requires television programmes and advertising to be kept distinct needs to be reviewed against those changes; and in this context, the rules around cross-promotion are of added significance. The same EU directive constrains the amount of advertising any television channel can show. Whilst a review of the EU Directive is underway(-3-), and it appears that there is likely to be some liberalisation of these constraints, it will nevertheless retain a degree of control over the amount of advertising television broadcasters can sell. Any promotion can only be excluded from the calculation of advertising minutage if it is not advertising.

"This statement sets out Ofcom’s conclusions for the regulation of cross-promotional activities going forward and includes the new Cross-promotion Code."