The tourist industry of Australia has shown how you can buy loads of prime time advertising on the BBC for very little outlay.(“The world’s best job” stunt) . Well done to them – the Great Barrier reef looks wonderful.
I suppose the good news is that it makes a welcome complement to all those self serving ads the BBC puts out about its own programmes and achievements.
If the BBC are now so keen on adverts, why don’t they start charging the Australian tourist industry and anyone else who wants some airtime?
May 6, 2009
“If the BBC are now so keen on adverts, why don’t they start charging the Australian tourist industry and anyone else who wants some airtime?”
I doubt the Labour Party could afford commercial rates.
May 6, 2009
But you have perhaps missed the point John.
If the BBC shows more of the same ads for itself, over and over again.
It saves on production costs for normal programmes, as they have to be shorter to accomodate them.
So there you are, blow your own trumpet at the licence fee payers expense, and give them less to watch at the same time.
May 6, 2009
They aren’t the only ones. At the start of Andrew Marr’s political program on Sunday morning, a pile of newspapers is put on the front seat of his Nissan Figaro. Prominently displayed is The Sunday Times
May 6, 2009
You can get prolonged ads for free on the BBC as long as you’re someone like David Attenbore who will give global warming a plug along the way as he did recently while trying to flog his book or DVD or other tat on the One Show. Watch it tonight, it will be nothing but an extended plug for some book or other. Lord Lloyd Webber gets a whole series to promote his musicals. Jonathan Ross charges us £18m to run his show which plugs albums and books. Unlikely bedfellow Attenbore was even on that. Even the local news programmes are at it with guests promoting their wares.
May 6, 2009
They’d never do that, think of all the money they’d be charging the Labour Party (or the Government!) for the shameless promotion of Labour’s policies and actions.
May 6, 2009
I am currently listening to Sister Wendy plugging her new book and to some ex miner who has cadged £2 million to do a statue on the M26. It’s easy – if you toe the line. (Midweek)
I do not think, somehow, that our host will ever get on to mention his books………
May 6, 2009
There is a formal complaint currently in the hands of the BBC Trust precisely on this general issue, albeit on a different topic.
May 6, 2009
It is a far more widespread practice than is widely realised. Just get something into a press agency and you have every chance it will be picked up by the mainstream media. Much of today’s “news” is no more than an advert of one sort or another if you step back and analyse it. And the BBC (my bete noir) aren’t the only ones at it. I believe the phenomena is called “Churnalism” whereby the journalists more or less so a ‘cut and paste’ from the original source and hey presto “news”
May 6, 2009
Raedwald – the government, in it’s guise as New Labour, is the biggest spender on advertising in the UK, nearly £1/2 billion of our money pumping up their messages.
May 6, 2009
If you want to create free advertising you have to create controversy without actually breaking the law.
As an example:
(Gives a risque example of a stunt with race, religion and sex all forming part of the tableau-ed)
May 6, 2009
Personally, I’m all for ads on the BBC. If it still wants to pretend to be a public service broadcaster, instead of the publicity wing of the Labour Party, then let it keep one TV station, two or three radio stations and a much reduced internet footprint; the rest could be supported by advertising, with the added bonus that we can blithely ignore offensive content in the knowledge that we’re not paying for it.
May 6, 2009
It’s about time the BBC started paying their own way! They are remarkably biased towards the Labour government – there’s even a blog dedicated to it. So if they want to conjure up more reasons to generate more revenue, they should do it on their own (like other TV stations) and leave the public alone!
I despise the TV license and its a bloody cheek they send threatening letters. Buy a TV with your own money, then pay for the priviledge of watching it? Big injustice! I HATE the BBC.