Government Announces TV Product Placement Bans

Opposition from Cabinet Ministers has led to the government announcing plans to ban television producers to use junk food, gambling and alcohol brands within their productions.

The announcement follows the government's decision to allow products to be marketed through television programmes. However ministers have since warned that such product placement could directly worsen national problems such as obesity, alcoholism and gambling addiction.

The clampdown comes after Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn and Health Secretary, Andy Burnham (who also won support from Children's Secretary Ed Balls and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband) lobbied against several parts of the product placement proposals initially backed by Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw.

Burnham, who was Culture Secretary in 2008 had stated at the time that product placement would be ruled out as an option.

As well as cabinet pressure, Bradshaw also received opposition on unrestricted product placement from influential organisations the Church of England, the British Medical Association, the National Union of Teachers and the Royal College of GPs, who all raised concerns.

The change emerged in a letter Bradshaw wrote to cabinet colleagues. In it, he confirmed that while the new form of marketing would go ahead, the products that caused concern would be excluded.

"Following consultation with the Department of Health I propose to ban product placement in the following areas: alcoholic drinks, HFSS [high in fat, sugar or salt] food, gambling, smoking accessories, over-the-counter medicines and baby food," he said.

Those restrictions go further than existing limitations on advertising cigarettes and medicines, for example, in print and broadcast media that are contained in both advertising industry codes and British and European laws. Companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's will not be able to promote many of their products in this way.

The more limited form of product placement will be a setback for commercial broadcasters, notably ITV, which had been lobbying for the change. Commercial broadcasters had estimated that the visible positioning of products in TV soaps, dramas and comedy shows could bring in as much as £140m a year. It is unclear how much less income will now be generated.

John McVay, chief executive of PACT, who had campaigned for product placement, said: "We are not surprised that there are restrictions on the use of product placement - we had anticipated that there would be the same restrictions as there currently are around advertising.

Richard Watts of the Children's Food Campaign, a coalition of charities and other groups that played a role in the opposition, said they were "delighted" Bradshaw had dropped plans to allow the product placement of junk food.

"But we are still uneasy that plans to allow some product placement will go ahead because this could allow a future government to sneak placement of junk food through the back door," he said. "Future governments should be warned that any attempt to reintroduce product placement of junk food will be met by the same massive level of opposition that won this campaign.

(Source the Guardian)