BBC Trust

The BBC Trust today confirmed that commercial sponsorship will not be allowed for on-air BBC events.

In July 2008, the BBC Executive announced that it would take no further commercial sponsorship. This is confirmed today within a revised Sponsorship Policy for BBC on-air events, published by the BBC after a public consultation by the Trust. The Trust asked for changes to be made to the BBC’s sponsorship guidance for BBC on-air events after the Trust upheld editorial and fair trading appeals about Sports Personality of the Year 2007.

The new policy forbids commercial sponsorship and the associated guidance provides greater clarity for programme makers when considering accepting sponsorship funding for BBC on-air events. The BBC’s position on accepting sponsorship can be summarised as follows:

• All permitted sponsorship of events should further the BBC’s public purposes and should not give the impression that a BBC programme has been sponsored;
• Commercial sponsorship of BBC on-air events will not continue, although non-commercial sponsorship of on-air events can continue, subject to the new policy and guidance;
• Off-air BBC events can be commercially sponsored, but are nevertheless subject to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines.

Richard Tait, BBC Trustee and chair of the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee, said:

"Sponsorship has a place at the BBC – it can bring important events into licence fee payers' lives – but producers need to have a very clear understanding about when and how such sponsorship may be accepted in support of the BBC’s public purposes. That’s what we have set out today.

"In particular we have tried to strike a balance between furthering the public purposes, minimising the impact on the commercial sector and protecting established and well-loved events like Cardiff Singer of the World."

The Trust asked the BBC Executive to revise the guidance on sponsorship for on-air events following complaints about the broadcast of Sports Personality of the Year in December 2007. This found that the programme had breached editorial and fair trading guidelines. The revised policy was put out for consultation in February this year, and the changes will be reflected immediately in the current guidance.

Non-BBC events, like sporting fixtures which are sponsored by third parties, can be covered on air by the BBC in accordance with the BBC Editorial Guidelines.

The Trust's conclusions on the consultation on the revised sponsorship policy are available here:

Publication of the BBC's revised Sponsorship Policy following the Trust's public consultation

The Trust asked RadioCentre if it was happy for its submission to the consultation to be published and RadioCentre agreed. This can be found at the end of the Trust conclusions on the revised sponsorship policy.

More information on the fair trading findings can be found at: Fair trading appeals findings.