Home Office-funded ITV doc investigated by Ofcom

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 04-Aug-08, 11:50

LONDON - Ofcom is looking into the making of Home Office-funded ITV documentary 'Beat: Life on the Street' following concerns it broke rules on sponsored programming.

A spokeswoman for the regulator, said: "We're looking into the programme and in particular the relationship between the sponsor and the broadcaster."

'Beat: Life on the Street' follows the work of Police Community Support Officers and was conceived by the Home Office's media agency Manning Gottlieb OMD in 2005.

The Home Office paid £800,000 to fund two six-part series of half-hour programmes, made by Twofour Broadcast and shown on ITV in 2006 and 2007.

Ofcom and ITV declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation.

The broadcasting code requires that a sponsor "must not influence the content and/or scheduling of a channel or programme in such a way as to impair the responsibility and editorial independence of the broadcaster".

The investigation was splashed on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph, which seized on the angle that taxpayers' money was being used to fund documentaries to show government initiatives in a favourable light.

According to the Sunday Telegraph the Government has spent almost £2m on at least eight television series or individual programmes in the past five years.

These include a National Blood Service-sponsored programme encouraging ethnic minorities to donate blood and a Ministry of Defence-sponsored documentary about a British Army team's ascent of Everest.

There was recent controversy over public funding for a TV programme in September last year, when adult learning provider Learndirect pulled its sponsorship of 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'.

Learndirect's owner Ufi and the government's marketing communications department COI made the decision after a judge condemned the show as a "human form of bear-baiting" in a court case involving an assault during filming.

Comments

Bill Gash - 05/08/2008

It will be very interesting to see the outcome of Ofcom's investigation because this programme has been heralded as a successful example of Advertising Funded Programming (AFP). It also underlines the difficulties of marrying the client's interests with those of the broadcaster - as ITV has recently stated, in AFP there are in fact two clients, not one. The bigger issue is whether it is advisable to turn public information programming into entertainment. Blurring the lines between a promotional programme to recruit PCSOs and a factual documentary is bound to have repercussions, especially if the true origin, funding and intention of the programme is not made clear, as Ofcom has alleged. Another approach is to use advertising and PR to encourage interested people to watch informative video content, on TV, online or on DVD, to engage and activate them. But be quite clear about what you are doing and why and who is involved. Honesty really is the best policy.