Product Placement about to hit a TV near you?

Ofcom the regulator which deals with broadcasters amongst its many remits has today (28/06/2010) published a consultation on product placement in television. Currently no product placement is allowed at all, but it's likely this will change.

There are still various type of programming where product placement will be not allowed (such as news programs)  and some factual programming, but pretty much any other type will be allowed. The separation between editorial and advertising will become more blurred in line with EU legislation. When a program contains product placement, there will be an audio and visual cue (a neutral logo) to indicate it. Ofcom have not yet decided how they should handle story lines that are written specifically to promote products.

Ofcom recently published a statement on VoD players and this implies that they will subject to the same product placement conditions.

The consultation closes on 17/09/2010 and stakeholders may respond on-line (which doesn't seem to be working) or via Email.