NCC needs payola rules and code of conduct

　　What is needed is instead a set of clear regulations that emphasize not forbidding but on disclosing possible financial or commercial agreements between broadcasting companies and the companies they report on.

　　The so-called “payola rules” in the U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) requires “that employees of broadcast stations, program producers, program suppliers and others who have accepted or agreed to receive payments, services, or other valuable consideration for airing material must disclose this fact.”

　　The requirement of information disclosure hands the power of censorship back to the public and the market. Programs with a heavy amount of product placements generally receive poorer ratings.

　　The current practice of many TV news stations in reporting on restaurants without naming them (in order to get around the NCC ban) is counterintuitive as such reports provide the audience with all types of information but the most basic one. By allowing the program to show the names of places along with full disclosure required by payola rules, TV stations can provide truly informative contents to the audience who can then discern if the program is valuable information or a prolonged advertisement.

　　If market regulation alone is not enough to cap placement promotions, the NCC can also work with mainstream media to establish a code of conduct to further establish ways to notify audiences of embedded advertisements in TV programs.

　　A similar code of conduct discussed by the Screen Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild recommends that placements should be pointed out clearly both in written words on screen and spoken orally and that regulations for children's programs should be even stricter.

　　In a controversial decision, the United States' FCC is applying payola rules on the Internet that will require both professional and amateur bloggers and Web site producers to disclose any rewards or freebies they have received from products they reviewed or mentioned.

　　As the Internet has gradually become the medium where most people receive information and entertainment, the NCC should also study ways to understand and then regulate possible embedded advertisements or preferential reports online.

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