91福利社

The 91福利社 Trust today confirmed that commercial sponsorship will not be allowed for on-air 91福利社 events.

In July 2008, the 91福利社 Executive announced that it would take no further commercial sponsorship. This is confirmed today within a revised Sponsorship Policy for 91福利社 on-air events, published by the 91福利社 after a public consultation by the Trust. The Trust asked for changes to be made to the 91福利社’s sponsorship guidance for 91福利社 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 91福利社 on-air events. The 91福利社’s position on accepting sponsorship can be summarised as follows:

• All permitted sponsorship of events should further the 91福利社’s public purposes and should not give the impression that a 91福利社 programme has been sponsored;
• Commercial sponsorship of 91福利社 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 91福利社 events can be commercially sponsored, but are nevertheless subject to the 91福利社’s Editorial Guidelines.

Richard Tait, 91福利社 Trustee and chair of the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee, said:

"Sponsorship has a place at the 91福利社 – 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 91福利社’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 91福利社 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-91福利社 events, like sporting fixtures which are sponsored by third parties, can be covered on air by the 91福利社 in accordance with the 91福利社 Editorial Guidelines.

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

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: 锘縁air trading appeals findings.