Times when one rival TV channel advertises on another

That's not an "advert" as such, that's more of a "Don't Panic" pacification, as in yes ITV Digital's keeled over and died but you don't need to go and join Sky/Virgin to keep watching EastEnders.

Didn't they show the wrong date on one?

The first Celebrity Big Brother, when it was in aid of Comic Relief, was shown on BBC One and Channel 4.

Yes on the afternoon of the Closing Ceremony they showed it in full with both C4 and 5 Live logos.

I remember that ident, but like you, can’t find any trace of it online.

The ITV/C4 cross-promotions lasted beyond the years when ITV provided the commercials and Channel 4 was basically an “ITV2”. Do we know when exactly these stopped? Was it from the start of 1994?



I’m surprised to hear cross-promotion continued until 1998. I don’t recall any “Over on Channel 4, whilst here on (ITV)“ announcements after 1993-94 on Tyne Tees/YTV. In fact, “next” slides were discontinued from 1996, with only an ECVO instead. Channel 4 promos on TTT/YTV may have continued longer - unless that’s what you actually meant by cross-promoting? But certainly none of the live “next on Four” announcements.

No, they were certainly scaled down from 1993, but the recollection of three of us in this thread, is they finally fizzled out in 1998

Here’s one of the few contemporary reports I can find:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/end-of-channel-4-levy-to-cost-itv-companies-pounds-100m-1253174.html

As I say the cross promotion was part of what was overall known as the “funding formula”, effectively an insurance policy taken out by Channel 4 from ITV, whereby in simple terms if Channel 4 made a loss ITV would subsidise it and if Channel 4 made a profit it would pay ITV. It was meant to guarantee Channel 4’s continued post 1993 existence if it were loss making. But from day one Channel 4 made a profit and wanted rid of the funding formula, conversely ITV were not keen on losing the extra revenue.

I know with the NFL (it may happen with other US sports), the networks promote each others games - including showing the network logo on screen.

This can be seen in the UK if you watch Redzone on Mix and look at the bottom ticker.

I’m not sure it happens to the same extent with other US sports - the NFL is almost unique in that its TV rights are totally centralised and sold by the league. Other US leagues have a mixture of games sold nationally by the league and other games for which the home team sells the rights, typically to regional sports networks.

I've definitely seen it with the NBA, where TNT point to games on ESPN or ABC and vice-versa (perhaps this is just during play-offs). Don't think I've seen it on MLB, though.

Yeah, me too. I do wonder if that's league-mandated though. Sometimes they won't use the logo of the other channel and will literally just write it in text, and sometimes they do. No consistency.

At the end of Channel 4's F1 programmes, they promote the fact that you can watch the session live on Sky Sports, or watch the highlights on Channel 4.