I don’t understand the logic of the current rules on product placement in television programmes, either from the perspective of a viewer (which I am) or a regulator (which I’m not, although I am available Eamon Ryan should you wish to nominate someone who actually watches television). At the moment, the practice is outlawed in Ireland on the basis that it’s surreptitious advertising, which I think must be regulator code for “almost as sneaky as subliminal advertising but not quite as glaringly unsophisticated as straightforward advertorial”.

How else to explain the latitude granted to TV3’s The Apprentice? Complaints about the first series appear to have gone nowhere. I’m not complaining, as the show wouldn’t exist without its sponsors and we would be sadly deprived of the Schadenfreude that comes from watching Team Megatron and Team Sparta (or whatever) bicker and crumble as they fail to transform themselves into hotshot television ad directors (the synergy!) by lunchtime. Given they’re all very busy participating in hour-long advertisements for whichever sponsor’s products form the basis of the task that particular week, I think we can cut the 110-percenters some slack.

So why is TV3 being cut a fair whack of slack? Product placement is defined in the old Broadcasting Commission of Ireland’s general advertising code – now inherited by the new Broadcasting Authority of Ireland – as “the inclusion of, or reference to, a product or service within a programme in return for payment or similar consideration to the programme maker or broadcaster for the specific purpose of promoting that product or service”. And it’s banned.

However… “Incidental references to products or services in a programme are legitimate where their inclusion within the programme is editorially justified.”

Ah. It could certainly be argued that the references to Meteor et al in The Apprentice are editorially justified in the context of the show’s task-centric format, although how anyone could describe them as “incidental”, I’m not sure. Certainly, it is true that the Irish version of the show, with its umpteen sponsors, tends to have more brand-oriented tasks than the British version, which is broadcast on the BBC and often features small businesses whose names you never quite catch.

To recap: The Apprentice, with its orgy of brands, is allowed. But payment for “surreptitious”, by which to say, relatively unobtrusive, “wallpaper” product placement – for example, Cadbury bars in the Carrigstown corner shop – is not permitted. You do see brands on Fair City and Hollyoaks and most soaps and dramas, but broadcasters are not allowed to make money out of them. I interviewed a Fair City producer about this subject in 2001 and he told me “it was impossible to do something like a soap opera and keep it credible without having ordinary brands on display”, adding – quite reasonably – “if we didn’t, we would have to make them up ourselves”.

You could do that, of course: Coronation Street has its Newton and Ridley ale, while residents of Albert Square test the bounds of credibility by simply asking for “a lager” – a quirk satirised yonks ago by impressionist Alistair McGowan as “a pint of unspecific, please Peggy”.

But “a pint of unspecific” is not the direction in which the industry is moving. With revenues from regular TV ads on the wane, the UK is now considering allowing product placement, a move that would surely signal a change in the rules in Ireland too, as Richard Gillis outlines.

Under the advertising code, the paid-for inclusion of brands in a programme acquired from outside of Ireland doesn’t count as product placement “provided that no broadcaster regulated in the state… directly benefits from the arrangement”. So if the British government changes its rules, ITV could rake in revenues from stuffing the Rover’s Return with Bacon Fries, but TV3 wouldn’t be allowed to cash in. That doesn’t seem quite fair, really.

Okay, so product placement has the potential to get out of hand, especially if it was to start infiltrating the script writing process. But advertisers know that too much cheese will make us turn off. And personally I’d rather see my screen dotted with occasional brands if it meant fewer in-your-face “editorially justified” Apprentice-style promotions, more cash for the production coffers and the obliteration of ad breaks proper. Now if only they’d ban annoying split-screen advertising over end credits…

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