Product Placement

Written by Diana Wallis MEP on Thu 5th Oct 2006

Back in the spring I sought views from people on my email list on the issue

of product placement and I just wanted to update you on where we are.

As you will recall the background to this issue is a piece of legislation

going through the European Parliament called 'Television without

Frontiers'. One of the components of this is to liberalise the use of what is termed product

placement (defined as the inclusion of, or reference to, a product or

service within a programme in return for payment or other valuable

consideration). The European Commission wants to leave the choice to

member states whether to authorise product placement or not, but the

proposal asserts it must be subject to some obligations, i.e. the product

placement must be made clear in some way at the beginning of the broadcast

concerned, the goods may only be placed not praised, product placement must

not take place in programmes for children, and some goods, like tobacco and

prescription medicines, may not be placed.

There were many interesting responses and I would like to thank everybody

who took the time to reply.

Interestingly, there was broadly equal support between those who were

happy with product placement and those opposed. Those who supported it

wanted it on the basis of the conditions as proposed by the Commission,

Some went further and said that product placement could be extended beyond

commercial television and onto the BBC, although several people said that

this extension should be on the condition that the BBC's licence fee be

reduced accordingly.

Those who opposed broadly mentioned the same three points:

'Too much advertising already'

'Children susceptible'

'Could lead to dumbing down'

There was also concern about defining where product placement ends and

where sponsorship begins. People seem to be more sympathetic to

sponsorship of programmes, which is very much the norm, of course, on

commercial television in the UK.

A further issue has emerged since my earlier correspondence and that is

whether the newer platforms for broadcasting, such as via the internet,

should be treated in the same way as the more traditional ways of

broadcasting. There is a view, which I support, which says the newer

platforms as embryonic industries should be allowed a more flexible

approach as far as product placement is concerned, whereas traditional

platforms ought to be more restrictive.

So where do we go now? Well, there will be a debate in my committee

(Internal Market) in the European Parliament today, Wednesday, with a vote

on Thursday. As the rapporteur on behalf of the Liberal group I shall be

making the points that have been raised by you and others (you can

probably imagine the amount of lobbying there has been, from all sides, on

this piece of legislation!). 'Television without Frontiers' will probably

be voted on in the full plenary of the Parliament in November.

At the same time when we have the final proposal which will go to the

Plenary I hope to have the opportunity to get wider feedback from

constituents across Yorkshire & the Humber.

Once again, many thanks for taking the time to respond. I will let you

know what happens.

Regards,

Diana

P.S. if you would like more information on the issue form what are

essentially two opposing points of view I can recommend:

Ofcom

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/product_placement/product.pdf

or

The European Consumer's Organisation

http://docshare.beuc.org/1/POEMKOLAKEFHGFFFIFOAPDBCPDBN9DBYAW9DW3571KM/BEUC/docs/DLS/2006-00238-01-E.pdf