TV Sponsorship

Off topic, but I remember when Accurist began sponsoring the speaking clock in 1986 and the recorded message named its sponsor. "At the third stroke, the time from Accurist will be..". Because I wasn't accustomed to hearing such sponsor messages (teenagers in other countries may have been) I interpreted what I heard to mean "the accurate tine will be..".

Is it only a matter of time before we hear "The ITV Evening News, sponsored by Durex Intense - designed for earth shattering experiences - with Mary Nightingale".

News isn't allowed to be sponsored currently, on TV or radio.

Currently, yes. Hopefully never. But parts of the news (weather, pollen count, travel etc) can be - in the regional news these form part of the programme and the stings can be jarring and affect the natural flow of the bulletin.

My comment about the news was in jest, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rules change one day.

I don't think the rule on news not being able to be sponsored will change.

Mind you, since the advertising rules were changed and you can now have Chasers appearing in the sponsorship bumpers of The Chase itself, I suppose nothing is definitely off the cards in the future.

You are right, a long sponsorship deal can be hard to replace. Its kind of like when Bet365 Bingo sponsored Emmerdale - IMO they were crap with the bingo heads.

Me too. When they were auditioning for the most recent voice, the BBC coverage omitted the "sponsored by Accurist" bit yet the sponsorship continued for a few more years. The last time I checked it was "the time from BT".

It was Spencer Brown. Took a while to find out who it was but I knew for sure it wasn't Spencer Jones, especially after seeing him on Comic Relief. Turns out Spencer Brown is a bit of a Jack Whitehall clone... or vice versa, whoever came first.

Depends on your provider, Sky have their own speaking clock service.

Oh, thank you for that, mixing up my comedy Spencers there. I've been avoiding Spencer Jones' act because of it as well.



Of course, STV got censured by Ofcom a few years back because their business news was sponsored, which is not permitted. You can sponsor sport and weather and so on but business news presumably runs the risk of potentially being compromised if a company is associated with it.

I recently watched "Frasier" on C4 all the way through. Weekends are sponsored by Lyle's Golden Syrup and were bearable. The weekday sponsor is Yakult and I vowed never again would I buy that brand, they were thoroughly irritating initially and downright vile later on.

The Beano sponsoring The Simpsons on Sky 1 is an odd one.

They seem to have stopped that already.