After a strident attack on product placement last month when he appeared to rule out its introduction, saying that it would ‘contaminate' the editorial integrity of programmes, culture secretary Andy Burnham appears to be about to do a U-turn.
Speaking to a newspaper he now says that he is now open to persuasion that the benefits outweigh the negatives. Although this is welcome news to broadcasters and advertisers, this is obviously what he should have done in the first place before making such intemperate statements.
It is now up to the broadcasters and the wider marketing industry to put their case and they'd be sensible to rule-out a practice that has emerged in the US on an LA affiliate of Fox News (natch). On top of the desks of its news anchors as they present the morning news are two cups of McDonald's-branded coffee, albeit filled with a bogus liquid and fake ice cubes to prevent them melting under the light.
While no one would really mind if, as ITV's Rupert Howell has quite rightly argued, that the brand name Barbour instead of the generic term ‘waxed jacket' appeared in Emmerdale, the thought of Jon Snow on Channel 4 News sat there with a fake Frappuccino on his desk would probably make Burnham go 360-degrees.
