An underwriting spot is an announcement made on public broadcasting outlets, especially in the United States, in exchange for funding. These spots usually mention the name of the sponsor, and can resemble traditional advertising in commercial broadcasting. However, there are legal restrictions, such as a prohibition of making product claims, announcing prices, or providing an incentive to buy a product or service. In the U.S., these restrictions apply to all non-commercial educational stations, and even for non-sponsoring companies and products.

Donors who contribute funding can include corporations, small businesses, philanthropic organizations, charitable trusts, and individuals.

Criticism has emerged that these spots are a corrupting influence on the operations of public broadcasting, and introduce the same biases into non-commercial radio and television that allegedly exist on for-profit outlets.^{[citation needed]} These include inhibiting influences on public affairs programs (even self-censorship) where investigative journalism is featured and tendencies toward the use of non-artistic criteria in determining the selection of programs, such as symphony broadcasts on radio and theatrical productions on television.

[edit] PBS policy

The Public Broadcasting Service defines its "Program Underwriting Policy" in its PBS Redbook. As of 2007^[update] its provisions include the following:^[1]

• Underwriters are defined as third parties that voluntarily contribute cash to partially or fully finance the production or acquisition of a program by a PBS station. Underwriters do not include investment or licensing partners or distribution entities providing cash for other purposes.
• The block of time containing underwriter credits is called the "underwriting credit pod"; it can be no longer than 60 seconds, with no more than 15 seconds allocated per underwriter. If any underwriter is mentioned, then all must be acknowledged.
• Underwriting credit pods must "mirror the production values of the program and flow smoothly with program content and other packaging elements."
• Underwriting credit pods must appear at the end of the program and may appear at the beginning. In news and public affairs programs, underwriting credits must be included in both places. The end underwriting pod can be either before or after the program's production credits; if an underwriting pod is including in the beginning, it must start within the program's first three minutes and should be placed after the program's opening or tease (in order to separate national underwriting from local underwriting).
• When PBS partially funds the production, the underwriting credit pod must end with "...from Viewers Like You. Thank you"; when funding is received from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), they are credited with a voiceover ("This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting") and a "visual treatment" consisting of the CPB logo, the tag line "a private corporation funded by the American people" and the CPB's website ("cpb.org").

Sponsorship underwriting and advertising are essentially the same thing when linked by the exchange of something of value such as cash, goods or services. The underwriter receives a number of informational messages about their business which are broadcast in exchange for a dollar amount. Individuals, Foundations, and nonprofit donors may underwrite programming without the need for an underwriting informational advertising contract. PBS and CPB rules permit underwriting commercial use for broadcast stations with certain speech limits that are only available to broadcast stations because of the nature of the non-profit license. Cable television does not mention or permit this underwriting use as there are no speech restrictions permitted by cable law. Title 47. U.S.C.. Cable television is pay for play programming purchased by the cable subscriber. Underwriting is found on cable "must carry" PBS stations. Only Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) cable channels have commercial use restrictions and are created to be free from all underwriting informational messages permitted for PBS channels. Commercial underwriting considerations have limited 1st Amendment protections as the paid underwriting message is bias in nature.

[edit] References

1. ^ Program Underwriting Policy from the PBS website