[PaulDavisThe1st]

1) I suspect that I am older than you, but either way, probably the same cohort.

2) I have a very hard time considering a media organization mentioning its own products and activities in its content as "advertising". If you want to use the word that way, be my guest, but my understanding (and I think most people's understanding) of the term implies a 3rd party paying a media organization to include marketing content in their output.

3) Fair point about BBC America, but I don't think it really invalidates the point.

[nephihaha]

The BBC does not carry advertising in the same way as ITV, but a certain amount of content qualifies. I don't include trailers, but I do include promotion of their own non-TV products, the TV licence, promotion of the corporation as a whole (the BBC has done a number of nostalgia reels and songs — their cover of "Perfect Day" years ago would qualify.) and so on.

The BBC has a perpetual Catch 22 around self-advertising, much like the NHS.