What Clearcast and Radiocentre pre-clearance means for UK creative automation

What to take away

What Clearcast clears for TV and what Radiocentre clears for radio

Clearcast is the body that pre-clears most British TV advertising before it airs. It checks the commercial against the CAP Code and the BCAP Code, the broadcast advertising code that sits alongside the ASA's rulebooks.

The ASA publishes those codes and enforces them after transmission, which is why pre-clearance exists: to catch problems before a spot reaches a viewer in Greater London, the North West or anywhere else.

The CAP Code is the rulebook for non-broadcast ads, and the broadcast codes mirror much of it. Read the Advertising codes - ASA | CAP for the wording that Clearcast applies to claims, comparisons, food and drink, medicines and children's advertising. A creative team that knows the code writes fewer rejected scripts.

Clearcast issues a clearance number and, for some campaigns, conditions. Those conditions might restrict a claim to a particular audience, require a qualifier on screen for a set number of seconds, or limit when the ad can run.

The clearance decision covers the script, the finished film, the voiceover and the on-screen text as submitted. Change any of those and the clearance may no longer hold.

Radiocentre handles radio ad clearance in the UK. It checks scripts and audio for compliance with the broadcast code, including claims, offers, competitions and the way prices and terms are spoken. Radio is unforgiving: a listener hears a claim once, with no chance to re-read it, so the wording standards are strict.

Radiocentre also runs the Radiocentre clearance system that agencies and stations use to submit copy. Stations will not schedule an uncleared commercial, so a missing clearance number stops a campaign at the traffic desk. That is a production failure, not a creative one.

Both bodies sit inside a co-regulatory system. The ASA handles complaints and rulings after broadcast, while Clearcast and Radiocentre act before it. The About regulation - ASA | CAP page explains how that split works and where responsibility sits between the regulator, the clearance bodies and the broadcaster.

For creative teams, the practical split is simple. Clearcast and Radiocentre decide whether an ad may run. Everything else, from naming files to proving which cut was cleared, is production work, and production work is where automation fits.

What each body checks in practice

Where Copy Advice fits

Copy Advice is the ASA's pre-publication service for non-broadcast and some broadcast-adjacent material. It gives an opinion before you commit spend. Use it alongside formal clearance, not instead of it, and keep the response with the asset. The Copy Advice - ASA | CAP page sets out what the service covers and how to submit.

The clearance steps creative automation cannot touch

Clearance is a judgement about meaning. A person reads the script, watches the film and decides whether a claim is substantiated and whether the tone breaches a rule. Software can route that decision, timestamp it and store it, but it cannot make it.

Substantiation is the clearest example. If an ad says a product lasts longer, someone has to hold the evidence and decide whether it supports the claim as worded. A tool can attach the evidence file to the variant record. It cannot judge whether the test methodology is adequate.

Interpretation of the codes is the second limit. Rules on misleading claims, comparisons and children's advertising need context: the audience, the medium, the surrounding schedule. A rules engine that flags the word free will produce noise, not clearance.

Negotiation with the clearance body is the third. Executives ask questions, request amendments and sometimes grant conditions. That exchange is a conversation between people who understand the campaign and the code. Automating the submission form is fine. Automating the answer is not.

The final sign-off is the fourth. A named person at the advertiser or agency accepts legal and regulatory responsibility for the ad. That signature is a human act, and the audit trail should record who gave it and when.

There is also a category of change that looks trivial and is not. A reworded voiceover line, a shortened price flash, a swapped end frame: each can alter the meaning the clearance body approved. Automation can detect that the file changed. It cannot decide whether the change is material.

Why a human stays in the loop

Versioning, metadata and asset tasks automation can realistically cover

This is the ground automation can hold. A UK campaign might need 15, 30 and 60 second cuts, several end frames, regional variants for Scotland, Wales and the English regions, and separate audio mixes. Doing that by hand invites mismatched supers and wrong legal lines.

Versioning is the first win. Automation generates duration cuts from the approved timeline, applies the correct end frame per market and keeps the audio in sync. It also names every output to a convention, so a file called for a station in the West Midlands is obviously the right one.

Metadata is the second. Each variant needs a record covering the campaign, advertiser, product and market, plus duration, language and clearance reference. Good ad creative versioning software writes that record as the variant is produced, not weeks later when someone rebuilds the spreadsheet.

Supers and legal lines are the third. Price points, terms, disclaimers and on-screen qualifiers vary by market and by date. Automation can hold the approved wording, apply it to the right cut and flag any variant where the required line is missing.

Rights and music metadata are the fourth. Track, composer, publisher, licence window and territory belong on the asset record. When a licence expires, the system should flag every variant that uses the track, including the ones sitting in an archive.

Delivery specs are the fifth. Broadcasters publish technical requirements for file format, audio loudness and captioning. Automation can validate a file against those specs before it reaches a station, which prevents a rejection at the last minute.

Asset evidence trails are the sixth, and they matter most. Every cleared variant should carry the clearance reference, the version of the script it matches and the date of approval. That record is what you produce when a complaint arrives or a client asks which cut ran in Yorkshire.

What a variant record should contain

Where pre-clearance evidence should live in a creative automation workflow

Evidence belongs with the asset, in the same system that produced it. If the clearance certificate sits in an email thread and the film sits in a digital asset manager, the two will separate the first time someone leaves the agency.

Start with a single asset record. The approved film, the audio recording and every derived variant hang from it. The clearance reference attaches to the record that was submitted, and each variant inherits it only when the variant matches the cleared content.

That inheritance rule is the important part. A 30 second cut is not automatically covered because the 60 second cut was cleared. The record should show which variants were included in the submission and which were added later.

Route approvals through the same system. A reviewer opens the variant, sees the clearance reference, checks the supers and signs off. The ad approvals software that UK agencies use for this work keeps the decision, the comment and the timestamp in one place.

The workflow should also cover withdrawal. When a campaign ends or a claim is challenged, the system should mark the asset as withdrawn, stop it being reused and keep the evidence intact. That is the discipline behind running creative work from controlled intake to documented withdrawal.

Finally, make the evidence searchable by the things a regulator or client will ask about: advertiser, date, market, claim and clearance reference. A folder structure cannot answer those questions quickly. A metadata record can.

Timing, re-clearance and the cost of a late edit

Clearance takes time, and the clock starts when the submission is complete. A script with unresolved claims will bounce back with questions, and each round adds days. Build the clearance window into the production schedule rather than treating it as a formality at the end.

Re-clearance is triggered by material change. A new claim, a changed price, a different voiceover, a recut that alters the sequence of information: any of these can require a fresh submission. The clearance body decides, and the safe assumption is that anything a viewer would notice counts.

Late edits are expensive in three ways. The clearance slot may be lost and the media booking wasted. The re-submission fee and the production rework land on the same budget line. And the campaign may miss its flight date, which matters most around seasonal peaks when inventory is tight.

Versioning metadata helps here. If the system knows which variants were cleared, a late change to one market does not force a review of all of them. You re-clear the affected cut and leave the rest alone.

A simple rule works well: freeze the approved version, clear it, then generate variants from it. Any variant that departs from the cleared content goes back through clearance. Automation enforces the freeze; people decide the departure.

A short sequence for a late change

A worked example of a TV and radio campaign moving through both bodies

A household goods advertiser plans a national campaign for autumn. The agency is in Manchester, the media buy covers ITV regions, and the radio flight runs on commercial stations across the North West and Scotland. One film, one audio recording, many variants.

Step 1: brief and script. The creative team writes a 30 second TV script and a 30 second radio script from the same proposition. Both carry a price claim and a limited-time offer. The team checks the claim against the evidence pack before anything is submitted.

Step 2: TV pre-clearance. The agency submits the script and storyboard to Clearcast through the normal route. Clearcast asks for a wording change to the offer line and a longer on-screen qualifier. The agency amends the script and resubmits. Clearance is granted with the qualifier condition attached.

Step 3: radio clearance. The radio script goes to Radiocentre. The offer terms must be clear when heard once, so the executive asks for the closing line to be reworded. The agency records the new script version and resubmits. Clearance is granted.

Step 4: production and versioning. The film is shot and frozen. Automation generates 15 and 30 second cuts, three end frames for different regions and two audio mixes. Each output carries the campaign metadata, the clearance reference and the approved script version.

Step 5: evidence and delivery. The asset record holds the Clearcast reference, the Radiocentre reference, the approved scripts, the rights window for the music and the approver names. Delivery files are validated against broadcaster specs before they leave the building.

Step 6: a late change. Two weeks before the flight, the advertiser changes the price. The affected variants are flagged, the amended TV cut goes back to Clearcast and the radio copy goes back to Radiocentre. The unaffected regional end frames stay as cleared. New references are recorded against the changed variants only.

Step 7: after the flight. The campaign ends. The assets are marked as withdrawn, the evidence stays in place, and the record shows exactly which cut ran in which market and under which clearance. If a complaint arrives, the answer takes minutes, not days.

What the example shows

The clearance bodies decided the content. Automation carried the versions, the metadata and the evidence. The late price change cost one re-clearance round per medium, not a full rebuild, because the variant records showed what had actually been approved.

For teams preparing assets, the ASA's Resource library - ASA | CAP collects guidance that helps writers and producers get the content right before submission. Pair that with a pre-launch checks every advertising variant routine, and the clearance conversation starts from a stronger position.

Common questions