Abstract
Revenues from television spot-advertising can be viewed as a kind of indirect financing of editorial content. This applies still further to endeavours to incorporate advertising messages into programming. In order to identify problems associated with doing away with the separation principle, it is meaningful to adopt a perspective that brings together theories and findings which are genuinely embedded in economics and communication science. Such a perspective shows that appealing to the self-regulating forces of the market is nonsensical in a sector where market failure is the rule as opposed to the exception. And when it comes to media competence of television viewers, audience research and research on media effects indicates that expectations with respect to the advertising effectiveness of product placement are unlikely to be met.
© 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
