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UK’s Baffling Ban on Product Placement

: Image via Wikipedia

The UK Parliament has upheld a ban on product placement in television programming. While I guess one could applaud the government for trying to maintain so sort of purity it doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny.

For starters, the ban is only on shows made by Brits and for Brits. Shows made in countries that allow product placement will still be allowed to air. If you’ve ever been to the UK you know how much US programming has permeated their television. This decision effectively makes it even harder for UK TV producers to compete with US companies since traditional ad revenue is drying up quickly and they will not be able to tap into the growing revenue generated by product placement.

It’s also hard to understand where the harm lies in product placement. Our lives are saturated in brands. From the Colgate toothpaste in the morning to the TylenolPM at night, we are completely surrounded by products. So, it is simply natural that the characters on our TV shows would be equally exposed. That one company can pay to be the featured product is just making the best of the situation.

And why pick on TV? Think how much “product placement” there is online and in movies. Why is the government so concerned with TV?

Why not invest money in creating early-education intervention to teach children how to think critically about all the media they consume? Yeah, I know, that would be hard. Writing and passing silly legislation is a whole lot easier.

(via)