Times when one rival TV channel advertises on another

Much longer - around mid 1998 I think. Part of the “funding formula” which was put in place when Channel 4 became independent in 1993 - there was a fear that it would not be able to sell enough advertising to cover its running costs but that never happened.

Not UK, but I am always amazed at the cross promotion between the otherwise competitive US networks when comes to the NFL - part of the TV deals of course.

I always wondered if Channel 4 checked if all the ITV regions were seeing the programme it was promoting. Did they just stick to cross-promoting safe primetime stuff like Coronation Street?

In a way, it therefore made sense for the ITV company to do the promotion themselves, such as Thames in that video for Thames News. I do wonder why they say "over on ITV" rather than on Thames. LWT did the same. It was clearly some sort of policy insisted upon by either Channel 4 or the IBA for whatever reason.

It was only the fully networked stuff for ITV. None of the BBC style, 'and that's except for viewers in Scotland' announcements!

Yes, like the ITV promos on TVam and GMTV would have been too

Of course they would have known which programmes to promote and point to, things weren't and aren't just done randomly, that's what media planning is for

I was a little surprised to see this post, simply because I feel like I see this kind of promotion all the time. Effectively it’s no different to a programme buying newspaper, billboard or social media space – TV adverts are just another option, and indeed it makes sense to advertise, for instance, an expensive drama series during the advert breaks of another expensive drama series as you’re likely to expose your show to the right kind of people. I guess the only difference is, as mentioned, I understand that you can’t be specific about the timing of your show.

It’s certainly fair enough if you haven’t seen it done that often, but it seems to be increasingly common. In fact, you often see Netflix shows promoted during ad breaks. Again, it makes a lot of sense, though I feel a bit ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ when I see that!

Nickelodeon UK in 2000 showed a promo for new episodes of Ed, Edd n Eddy over on Cartoon Network.

In what year did ITV and Channel 4 cross promotions end?

I think it was at the end of 1998.

Fairly common, especially for campaigns that have a bit of off-air spend behind it. As long as the tags are kept generic, then it's treated like an advert than a promo.

I.e. 'Next Week' 'This Month' 'on <TV Channel>'

There's no legal reason why not, but most channels do not want a rival advertising saying something like turn over now, or in X minutes.

Didn't the IBA have to intervene, when some ITV companies refused to sell advertising time to Sky and BSB back in 1989 ?

In 1995, Meridian were fined by the ITC for refusing to run promos for the premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral on Channel Four, because it was in breach of their licence which required them to.