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Advertiser Funded Programming (AFP) is a recent term applied to a break away from the traditional model of television funding. Typically programmes have been funded by a broadcaster and they re-couped the money through selling advertising space around the content. This has worked fine for decades, but new technological advances have forced broadcasters and advertisers to re-think their relationship.

With the advent of digital recording devices, also known as personal video recorders (PVR's), viewers can choose to record episodes or entire series of their favourite shows and watch them in their own time. Not only does this skew the idea of 'primetime', (advertisers being charged a premium for buying spots around the most popular viewing times), but it means viewers can skip the ads altogether.

Advertiser funded programming (AFP) is a solution to this change and means the advertiser pays to place their message in the tv programme itself, rather than just buying advertising space around it. It includes product placement, sponsorship, and more recently the actual creation of whole shows from scratch. Mark Burnett has been a visible example of this in the US. Both independent agencies and the global networks have even created dedicated units to concentrate on AFP, such as BBH, Hubbub Communications, Now Inc., Mudra, WPP's Group M, or Omnicom's Grand Central, London based, Advertiser Funded Programming agency.

The increasing popularity of advertiser branded projects in Britain has also led to an increase in TV executives approaching advertisers to co-develop programme content. IndependentVision, the first AFP consultancy run solely by former TV creatives, was set up in 2009 by producer Ben Devlin to create new relationships between brands and broadcasters across the entire range of traditional and emerging media platforms and to anticipate changes in legislation governing product placement.

Some recent examples of AFP:

• The Krypton Factor, in partnership with The Sage Group on ITV
• [1] The Factory on Eurosport, in partnership with the Philips and AT&T Williams F1^{[citation needed]}
• Beat: Life on the Street on ITV, in partnership with the Home Office^{[citation needed]}
• Vodafone TBA on Channel 4, in partnership with Vodafone^{[citation needed]}
• Ford and Toyota in 24
• Crest toothpaste in The Apprentice
• American Express in The Restaurant

[edit] External links

• The Big Shot
• Independent Vision Website