Pedigree, the pet-food arm of Mars, has become the first company to fully fund a television programme on ITV in a move likely to preface widescale product placement on commercial television in Britain.

Pedigree is to finance Dog Rescue, a factual series for ITV1. The commercial broadcaster is creating such shows amid expectations in the industry that the Government will give the go-ahead in the next 18 months to allow product placement on television.

ITV said that it was in talks with 30 advertisers, from telecoms groups to retailers, to fund fully a range of productions, from dramas to documentaries and factual programmes. Although at present ITV and other commercial broadcasters allow businesses to sponsor shows, full funding of programming content is new for British television.

Advertisers hope that, after a European Union directive on broadcasting issued late last year, pints of Boddingtons could be served in Coronation Street’s Rovers Return and Pepsi could be drunk in The X Factor. EU countries have been given the option of allowing product placement in most genres of commercial television, but not for news, sport, children’s programming and current affairs.

Product placement in company- funded shows is common in the United States, where shows such as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition would not exist without the backing of Sears, the department store chain. The commercial content of such programmes was fertile satirical ground in the hit film The Truman Show.

Pedigree’s brands will be advertised before and after commercial breaks on Dog Rescue, but not during the show.

Critics said yesterday that programming funded by a single advertiser, even without product placement, runs the risk of “degrading the content”.

Granville Williams, of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, said that a programme-maker’s judgment would be affected when an advertiser’s needs had to be considered. “A clear separation between programming and advertising has become blurred,” Mr Williams said.

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