Sponsorship 'compromised BBC integrity'

The BBC Trust has upheld complaints from ITV and commercial radio stations over sponsorship of Sports Personality Of The Year 2007, ruling that a deal with Britvic "compromised the editorial integrity of the BBC".

The Trust said the event should not be sponsored once the current deal for Britvic drinks brand Robinsons has expired.

The internal regulator also ordered a review of BBC rules and guidance in relation to event co-funding and asked director general Mark Thompson to send written apologies to ITV and RadioCentre, the commercial radio industry association.

The Trust found that, as required, Britvic had co-funded the December event, rather than sponsoring the Sports Personality Of The Year programme directly.

However, it said: "The programme and SP07 website compromised the editorial integrity of the BBC by giving the impression that (via a programme) part of a BBC service had been sponsored." The Robinsons logo had been too prominent and there had been too many mentions of the name during the coverage, said the Trust.

The Trust did not uphold complaints about fair trading and competition issues, saying the contract was made at market rates, though it disagreed with the BBC Executive's view that sponsorship of events was not subject to competitive impact principle rules.

There was also a technical breach of the BBC Agreement because there was no statement of policy for "alternative finance" in place with the Government at the time of broadcast, though BBC events have been co-funded by private companies for many years.

ITV and RadioCentre appealed to the Trust after their complaints were rejected by the BBC's complaints procedures.