FCC targets product placement

WASHINGTON – Possibly coming to televisions across the nation: stronger warnings that the Cokes, Oreos and Sidekicks flaunted by actors have bought their way onto your favorite show.

That’s what the Federal Communications Commission signaled Thursday when it said it would review new rules on how television programmers let viewers know when those “props” are really paid pitches.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said product placements and integration into story lines have increased as television viewers increasingly use recording devices like TiVo and DVRs to fast forward through commercials. Currently, agency rules require television programmers to disclose sponsors who have embedded products. Those disclosures typically are done during the credits at the end of the show, which fly by viewers in small script.

“We want to make sure consumers understand and are aware that they are being advertised to,” said Martin, who first pushed to clarify disclosure rules last fall. “We ask how we should update our rules to reflect current trends in the industry.”

The FCC plans to study whether sponsorship notices should be written in bigger print and displayed for a defined period of time. They are looking at adopting rules similar to those for political ads, which require sponsorship messages to be in a print at least 4 percent the height of a screen and are displayed for at least four seconds.

The agency also will look into stronger rules for advertisement disclosures in children’s and cable programming.

The number of product placements in prime time television programs rose 13 percent last year, according to a coalition of 31 consumer and family television programming advocates that have pushed the FCC to curb how advertisers integrate products like Cheerios, Doritos and Big Macs into prime time shows.