Advertising disclosure

This site is free to read. It is paid for by advertising, and in future it may be paid for in part by affiliate commission. This page says exactly how that works and what it can and cannot buy, because a reader deciding whether to trust a rating deserves to know what pays for the page it sits on.

Advertising

Advertising is served by Google AdSense. Ad slots are labelled with the word Advertisement, they sit apart from editorial content, and they are never dressed up to look like a record, a list entry or a recommendation. Slot heights are reserved in the layout before the ad arrives, so nothing on the page moves when it loads.

We do not sell placement in a list, a ranking or a recommendation, and no advertiser sees a page before it is published. Google chooses which advertisements appear. We do not control that selection, we do not endorse the advertisers, and an advertisement appearing beside a record says nothing about the record.

Affiliate links

As of the date at the top of this page, this site carries no affiliate links at all. No affiliate programme has been joined and no commission has been earned. This section describes how affiliate links will work when they are added, so that the rule exists before the money does.

An affiliate link is a link that pays this site a small commission if you buy something after following it, at no extra cost to you. When they appear here:

• Every affiliate link is labelled where it appears, not only on this page
• Affiliate blocks sit apart from editorial text rather than inside a sentence about a drama
• The disclosure appears before the link, close enough to see without scrolling
• Prices and availability are set by the retailer and can change after we write about them

Programmes under consideration include Amazon Associates and travel and booking networks. When one is joined, the programme is named here and any wording that programme requires is added. If you are reading this and the list still says none, then there are none.

What advertising and commission never buy

• A place in a list, a ranking or a best of
• A rating, a score, or the removal of one
• Coverage of a title, a person or a release
• A kinder description, or a harsher one for a competitor
• Access to a page before it is published, or the right to review one
• The removal of a correction

Editorial decisions are made before anything commercial is attached to a page, by the people named on the masthead, under the editorial policy. If those two things ever came into conflict, the editorial policy wins and the commercial arrangement goes.

Sponsored content and gifts

There is no sponsored content on this site. If a piece is ever paid for or supplied by a third party, it will be marked as such at the top, in the same size as the headline, and it will be excluded from ratings and rankings.

Screeners, review copies, press access and promotional material sent by distributors and publicists are accepted for the purpose of covering the work. They are not payment, they carry no agreement about what is written, and they are disclosed on the record where they were used.

Cookies and personalisation

Advertising cookies are set only where you have allowed them. Refusing them does not remove the advertising, it makes it non personalised. Your choice is remembered and can be changed at any time from the Cookie preferences link in the footer. The detail is in the cookie policy and the privacy policy.

Advertising enquiries

Changes to this page

When an affiliate programme is joined, or an advertising arrangement changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top changes too.