If you’re not particularly into politics or are not an avid follower of current events, you might have missed the Conservative government’s decision to raise the election spending cap from £19.5 million to more than £35 million at the back end of last year.
Why is this significant you might ask – and more importantly, what does it have to do with the marketing industry?
Quite a lot, actually, as the new rule means the UK’s two biggest political players – the Conservative and Labour parties – now have an extra £15.5 or so million to spend on electioneering. A key part of which is, of course, advertising.
Political advertising has been banned in the UK ever since the inception of commercial TV in 1955, with parties instead relying on Party Political Broadcasts to target the viewing public. These free-to-air slots are evenly allocated among the main political parties on a schedule set by parliament and are confined to traditional broadcast TV.
But now, thanks to an Ofcom loophole – and armed with fatter wallets than ever – politicians have set their sights on the unregulated world of streaming to beam their messages to the nation.
What will this mean for election fairness, and more importantly how will the viewing public’s experience change during peak election seasons?
Is streaming the new election frontier?
As of now nothing has been finalised, but ITV’s streaming service, ITVX has been very open over the past few weeks about its plans to consider allowing paid-for political ads in the run-up to the impending general election.
Given ITV’s advertising struggles over the past 18 months that’s more than understandable, but what might confuse most is why such ads would even be allowed in the first place.
After all – paid-for political ads are illegal, aren’t they? Well no, not on streaming platforms. Ofcom’s ban, last updated over 20 years ago, exclusively covers broadcast TV.
A glaring oversight you might think – and it certainly seems that way, as Ofcom has confirmed that any such move would not covered by the ban, stating that it is up the individual streamer/broadcasters to decide their own policies.
With viewers increasingly turning away from linear TV in favour of more flexible streaming alternatives such as ITVX or Netflix, surely it’s time the Ofcom ban was updated for the modern media landscape?
Political author and journalist Sam Delaney certainly thinks so, citing potential dangers to electoral fairness and election democracy.
“This needs to be very carefully regulated,” he begins.
“It costs money to buy media space, quite aside from costs of production, and that’s when you get into very difficult territory. As we see in America, where political parties become increasingly dependent on outside finance and shadowy vested interests end up playing a much bigger part in the outcomes of elections.”
You might ask – why haven’t the Tories and Labour considered streaming until now? The key lies in the raising of that all-important spending cap. Parties now have a lot more money to play with – and can justify peppering the public with what previously might have been seen as a bit of a luxury.
Will they have now have free reign over streaming? Advertising executive and political advertising author Benedict Pringle isn’t so sure, citing ClearCast’s role in the process as vital: “Given the role that Clearcast play as a gatekeeper for content that is allowed on broadcasters’ video-on-demand services, it remains to be seen whether it’s possible.
“Clearcast doesn’t clear political advertising, as Iceland found out when their 2018 Christmas ad was ‘banned’ by the clearance service for using footage that had previously appeared in a Greenpeace video.”
The butterfly effect
If unrestricted political ads do begin appear on ITVX this autumn what will this mean for the rest of the industry, and will further streaming providers follow suit?
The streaming landscape has faced its fair share of challenges over the past two years, suffering an inevitable downturn as the cost-of-living crisis led many to cut their subscriptions, deeming them unnecessary luxuries.
ITVX’s decision itself is partially rooted in the broadcaster’s less-than-satisfactory ad sales performance in 2023 – with CEO Carolyn McCall warning last summer that it was in the midst of its “worst advertising recession” since the 2008 financial crisis.
So, are we set to see blanket political advertising rolling across a streaming landscape, hungry for any scrap of extra cash it can get its hands on?
Probably not – as Pringle noted ClearCast will still have a vital role to play – and big players such as Amazon have actively spoken out against political advertising on their platforms.
“In the UK election advertising brings in relatively small sums of media income and it opens media owners up to a huge amount of potential backlash,” Pringle explains.
“The threat of backlash arises out of a lack of regulation which means media owners are the ones who get flack for any misleading or offensive advertising that runs on their platform. Due to fear of becoming a political football, lots of media owners refuse to carry election advertising, including some streaming channels like Amazon Prime. I’m sceptical that many scale players will be tempted.”
Delaney however is less inclined to agree with Pringle’s scepticism, pointing out that at the end of the day – private companies are beholden only to their shareholders
He says: “In the end, nothing’s sacred, especially in desperate times. Switch on most TV channels, and you’ll see blanket ads for dodgy loan companies or bookmakers. These organisations will act within the law of course – but that’s what needs to be tighter.”
A new dawn?
All this begs the question – should paid-for political advertising be allowed in the first place, and if so – why restrict it only for some mediums and not others? After all a concerted mass media push might be exactly what the electorate needs to stay informed and increase voter turnout.
Would it not be more sensible to allow political advertising across the board, but restrict spend and regulate them stringently?
After all – we live in a vastly different media age than the one in which these original rules were drawn – and there is a yawning chasm between today’s landscape and when they were last updated in 2003.
What then is the solution? Delaney believes paid-for political ads must be avoided at all costs, and an extension of the current, free, equally allocated broadcast system should be adapted for the 21st century and extended across multiple mediums.
“All advertising is fine, as long as it’s free when it comes to politics. The current party political broadcast system is fair. It upholds democracy. As audience habits have now shifted however, we probably do need them on streaming platforms, but they should follow the same rules.”
This is in direct contrast to Pringle however, who believes that political advertising does have a place at the table of UK media consumption but needs to be very carefully regulated.
“I think election advertising is a good thing for democracy. Political parties need to be able to communicate directly with voters, rather than be mediated by journalists with their own interests or biases,” he says.
“In the digital age, there is also no logic to limiting election advertising to some channels and not others. You can run political advertising on podcasts but not radio, on YouTube but not Channel 5. It makes no sense.”
Whatever ultimately comes of this, a common-sense approach needs to be taken. One that is adapted for the way we consume media in the modern world, but also one that upholds democracy and fairness.
Otherwise we risk seeing unregulated US-style electioneering reaching these shores – and we all know where that leads…
