While walking into Brighton from Hove along Western Road at the weekend, past Starbucks, Sevenoaks Sound & Vision, The Real Eating Company, Videobox, Waitrose, City Books, HSBC, HMV and Bankers, I noticed a story on the cover of The Guardian in the window of Sweet N Things News Agent (the city's most unusually named shop) and was dismayed by the prospect of product placement being permitted on commercial channels like ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.

The move would allow TV companies - but not the BBC - to display branded products on screen. It's estimated it could worth be worth as much as £100 million to cash-strapped broadcasters, who've been badly hit by the recession. And every little helps. But as I said to a friend on my Sony Ericsson phone soon after, via the Vodafone network, there's a danger that the credibility of TV programmes will be undermined by the brazen brandishing of products like Appletiser, Diet Coke, Smarties, Tesco Freshly Frozen Roasting Parsnips, The Word Magazine and the first series of Sky One's applied-psychology drama Lie To Me, which has just been released on DVD.