The BBC is being accused of making money by inviting companies to promote their brands in the middle of live programmes such as Children in Need and Saving Planet Earth in contravention of advertising rules.

ITV and Britain’s commercial radio companies are to lodge a complaint with the BBC Trust about the corporation’s decision to sell “sponsorship packages” for live events. They say that this growing practice exploits a loophole that breaches the long-established no-advertising rule.

The BBC refuses to say how much it generates from the activity, which could raise £1 million a year. However, what the BBC offers is spelt out on a website – bbceventsponsorship. com – in which advertisers are told that their brands can appear on BBC One, and that they can secure VIP invitations to the events.

Rupert Howell, ITV’s newly appointed sales director, said: “Since arriving at ITV I’ve been amazed at the extent of the BBC’s commercial activities. Such encroachment on to commercial territory could have a profound and distorting effect on the market.”

Sponsors who pay to support Children in Need, presented last year by Terry Wogan and Fearne Cotton, are told that getting involved in the annual appeal gives them the “ability to ‘soften’ brand”, and motivates staff by providing them with “money-can’t-buy rewards”. Last year’s sponsors were Boots, BT and HSBC, and they were entitled to credit on air and tickets to the live telethon for staff.

Cash generated for Children in Need is donated to the charity but that is not the case with other event programming. Radio 2 live events are also open to advertisers, with “verbal credits on Radio 2”, branding on the Radio 2 website and “exclusive VIP behind-the-scenes meet-and-greets” promised for sponsors of Music from Disney in December, or Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Greatest Hits in September.

The BBC says that its sponsorship programme is legitimate because advertisers are sponsoring events, not programmes. However, ITV says that its rival is exploiting a loophole. Money raised may not go to the BBC, but is used to defray the cost of events.

ITV cannot yet appeal directly to the BBC Trust because it must first exhaust the BBC’s in-house complaints process. A parallel complaint from the Radio Centre, the trade body for commercial radio companies, is more advanced after being dismissed by Mark Thompson, the Director-General.

The BBC sponsorship website details “sponsorship opportunities”. A list of recent deals cites HSBC’s sponsorship of the Saving Planet Earth campaign, in which the bank was promised “contractual visual and verbal credits” on BBC One.

Andrew Harrison, chief executive of the Radio Centre, said: “By overtly selling sponsorship on broadcast events of this kind, often below commercial market rates and offering contractual credits around BBC programming, the BBC significantly distorts the market for sponsorship.”

John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Culture Select Committee, said that he would raise the matter with the trust’s chairman, Sir Michael Lyons. “There need to be very clear rules at what point sponsorship is moving into mainstream broadcasting, which it should not.”

A spokesman for the BBC Trust said that it was aware of the complaints but that it could not comment further until they had been resolved.

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