Advertiser funded programming (AFP) is a recent term applied to a break away from the traditional model of television funding. Typically programmes have been funded by a broadcaster and they re-couped the money through selling advertising space around the content. This has worked fine for decades, but new technological advances have forced broadcasters and advertisers to re-think their relationship. Note: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. ... Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. ...

With the advent of digital recording devices, also known as personal video recorders (PVR's), such as TiVo (US) and Sky Plus (UK), viewers can choose to record episodes or entire series of their favourite shows and watch them in their own time. Not only does this skew the idea of 'primetime', (advertisers being charged a premium for buying spots around the most popular viewing times), but it means viewers can skip the ads altogether. TiVo (pronounced tee-voh, IPA: ) is a popular brand of digital video recorder (DVR), a term synonymous with personal video recorder (PVR). ... A Sky+ box and its remote Sky Plus, or Sky+ is a subscription service which offers a personal video recorder fully integrated with a Sky Digital decoder. ... PrimeTime is a television newsmagazine from ABC News. ...

Advertiser funded programming is a solution to this change and means the advertiser pays to place their message in the tv programme itself, rather than just buying advertising space around it. It includes product placement, sponsorship, and more recently the actual creation of whole shows from scratch. Mark Burnett has been a visible example of this in the US. Both independent agencies and the global networks have even created dedicated units to concentrate on AFP, such as BBH, Now Inc., Mudra, WPP's Group M, or Omnicom's Grand Central. Most broadcasters are involved in this area increasingly, with Flextech and Discovery employing experts who work solely on creating AFP projects. Product placement(PPL) is a promotional tactic used by marketers in which a real commercial product is used in fictional media, and the presence of the product is a result of an economic exchange. ... Mark Burnett (born 17 July 1960), a British-born, naturalized citizen of the United States, is an extremely successful and dynamic TV producer, best known for the reality television series Survivor and the Eco-Challenge adventure race, as well as for The Apprentice, The Restaurant, The Casino, Rock Star: INXS... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... A statue of Gautama Buddha showing a dharmacakra mudra In Hinduism, a mudra (Sanskrit, literally seal; 印相 inzō in Japanese) is a symbolic gesture made with the hand or fingers. ... Grand Central may refer to: Grand Central Terminal - a train station in Manhattan, New York, USA Grand Central Station - a train station in Chicago; also the name of the predecessor to Grand Central Terminal (following Grand Central Depot) in Manhattan, New York. ... Flextech is a British television company. ...

Some recent examples of AFP:

• Ford and Toyota in 24
• Crest toothpaste in The Apprentice
• American Express in The Restaurant