Media Forum: Is AFP going mainstream?

Has ITV ushered in a new ad-funded programming era?

Last week, ITV announced that it has reached an agreement whereby Pedigree will fund a new ITV1 series called Dog Rescue. It is the first fully advertiser-funded project to be developed and produced by ITV - and it will run in a slot just shy of peaktime before 8pm.

Looking back to the early part of this decade, it seemed that AFP would take off in a big way. According to those at the more apocalyptic end of the forecasting business, the growth of personal video recorders would erode the effectiveness of the TV ad - making it essential for advertisers to find a way to embed their messages (or values) at the heart of programming content.

Funding programmes yourself is arguably going to be the most direct way of achieving that, but it's never been a simple business. Advertisers have struggled so far to develop ideas that succeed in achieving marketing goals, while still making even mildly compelling TV.

And even when the mainstream channels such as ITV and Channel 4 have indicated a willingness to look at this, individual programme bosses have proved stolidly intransigent when it comes to how it should work They believe it's their job to come up with a programme idea - and then the idea of further involvement can be sold to an advertiser once key development decisions had been taken. Advertisers, it seems, prefer to do things the opposite way around.

A seemingly irreconcilable impasse. Or so we thought. We'll have to see if Dog Rescue is any good, obviously - but is AFP on the verge of becoming a serious mainstream proposition? Nicky Buss, ITV's customer relations director, obviously thinks so.

She says: 'People have acknowledged that it's content that viewers engage with - regardless of the delivery platform. If you look at the three parties involved: broadcasters, advertisers and viewers - the broadcasters are experiencing pressures on programming budgets at a time when advertisers are worrying about how they work across so many new platforms. It's harder to achieve engagement and get critical mass. Meanwhile, viewers are increasingly comfortable with advertiser involvement.'