Advertiser funded programming

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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), such as TiVo (US) and Sky Plus (UK), 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 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, Now Inc., Mudra, WPP's Group M, or Omnicom's Grand Central. Most broadcasters are involved in this area increasingly, with Flextech and Discovery employing experts who work solely on creating AFP projects.

Some recent examples of AFP:

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