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21 November 2009
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Online Services Guidelines in Full

Editorial Integrity & Independence

• Introduction
• Links to external sites
• Criteria for linking to external sites or other content
• Factual accuracy
• Examples of appropriate linking to external sites
• Editorial checks
• Disclaimers
• Links to sites which do not share BBC editorial values
• Controversial content
• Undue prominence
• Automatically generated links
• References to BBC commercial channels, services & products
• Trails on bbc.co.uk for commercial products related to BBC programmes
• Sites for BBC commercial magazines
• On-Air Trails for BBC online services
• Use of commercial logos on BBC sites
• Outside providers of material
• Programme support material
• Programme support material for makeover programmes
• Programme support material for independent productions & co-productions
• Credits
• Production credits
• Placing of credits
• Photographs in credits
• Logos as credits
• Animations, movies & videos
• Credits & links
• Third party software for visitors to BBC sites
• Software downloads
• Logos & credits within software commissioned by the BBC

Programme support material for makeover programmes

The BBC should never promise to feature a supplier's details online in return for getting free or reduced cost goods or services for the programme.

Makeover programmes should take care to see that only those products and services which are editorially justifiable appear in programme support material.

It may be editorially appropriate to mention a specific product or supplier details where:

• the products are integral to creating the look of the programme
• suppliers offer a specialist or unique service or products which are very hard to find.

For example, white goods in a kitchen should not normally be referred to. But it might be appropriate to mention specialist manufacturers of retro chrome fridges if the item is specifically about designing a retro look kitchen. It is not editorially justifiable to mention specific brands or suppliers of generic products and services.

In other cases the support material should refer to a range of comparable products. Where an online fact sheet supports a programme which sets out to review and compare a range of products, the full range of products should be mentioned in the fact sheet.

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