Euro MPs set to approve TV product placement

The proposed revision of 1989's Television Without Frontiers directive will make advertising in programmes legal for the first time in Europe.

With industry self-regulation key to the new draft, many critics argue that the proposals go back on the commission's previous ruling banning "surreptitious advertising".​

Through various consultations spanning two years, food and media industry groups have lobbied the commission, insisting product placement - the paid-for placement of goods in films, shows and news programmes - would provide a valuable source of income. They cite the lucrative US model, where more than $3.5bn (£1.85bn) was raised this way in 2004 alone.

Advertisers fear their messages may be lost as viewers use digital technology to skip through adverts. And television channels complain the spread of this technology has made advertising less attractive and cheaper - impacting their incomes across the bloc.

But BEUC, the European consumers' organisation, said the decision to allow hidden advertising was "an unwanted present from Commissioner Reding and her colleagues."​

The mediawatch-uk lobby group has backed calls for a public discussion on this issue. Director John Beyer told FoodandDrinkEurope.com​: It's all very well for governments to express concern over rising obesity, but they have a benevolent attitude to fast food and junk food manufacturers who want to use product placement.​

"It's a major shift in emphasis that will radically change the television industry. And product placement is not in the public interest."​

Opposition comes as the EU is faced with an obesity epidemic. The European Commission, which launched a green paper on promoting healthy diets and physical activity, estimated that obesity accounted for seven per cent of EU health care costs.

And although there is no direct link between product placement and consumption, Coca-Cola noted that viewer recall of its products featured in the hit US television show American Idol was 49 per cent higher than in other less successful programmes that did not carry as much placement material. For the 2004 season, there were more than 2000 branded occurrences for the soft drink giant, costing the firm $9m.

But critics have condemned the practice of soft drink and junk food product placement. A study by UK consumer watchdog Which? revealed marketing devices used to persuade children to demand high-fat high-sugar junk foods are undermining their parents' efforts to kerb fat, sugar and salt consumption.

The watchdog has kick-started a UK Kids Food campaign for responsible marketing that is encouraging parents to get involved and pile pressure on the advertisers.

Michelle Smyth of the Which? food campaign team said: "We need a roots and branch system to prevent irresponsible marketing across the board we need meaningful action, and we are pressurising the government to deliver."​

According to a 2001 study in The Lancet, for each can of soft drink consumed every day, a child is 1.6 times more likely to become obese.

The British Medical Association, representing about three quarters of UK doctors, said that if current trends continue, at least one fifth of boys and one third of girls in Britain will be obese by 2020.

Recently soft drinks firms announced they will voluntarily ban advertising to children across the EU in an effort to curb public criticism amid the bloc's growing obesity problem.

The Union of European Beverages Associations (Unesda) said its members, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cadbury Schweppes among others, would stop advertising soft drinks to children under the age of 12.

And under the newly proposed Television Without Frontiers Directive, companies will not be allowed to use product placement in children's programmes, although prime-time family television will be exempt from this rule.