Clearcast Approval Process: How Agencies Prep TV Ads Before Submission

It was a Thursday evening call, the spot was booked to air the following week, and everyone on our side assumed the last stage of the Clearcast approval process was a formality, because my agency had delivered the edit on a UK client's 30 second TV ad days earlier. Then the client's account manager read the clearance note out loud, right, and it came down to a price super that didn't hold long enough to read and a voiceover line that said "the fastest broadband in your area" where the cleared script said "our fastest broadband ever". Those sound like the same line until you realise one compares you with every competitor and the other only compares you with yourself.

The fix was maybe twenty minutes of work for my editor, lay back the correct take and hold the super a little longer. What ate the rest of the night was the marketing lead's next question, which was which version Clearcast had actually watched, because three people on the call had three different files open, all with FINAL somewhere in the name.

Looking back, Clearcast did their part properly, the stages were clear and the note was specific, and the hole was on our side, because we had treated clearance as a box we posted the ad into. So this post covers the agency's side of the desk, the claims and supers review before you submit and the way you log and prove the fix afterwards, because that's where missed air dates really get made.

What the Clearcast approval process covers

Basically, Clearcast is the body UK broadcasters use to pre-clear TV ads against the BCAP Code, the UK's rulebook for broadcast advertising, and without that clearance the broadcasters won't play your spot out, right. It runs in three stages, with the script and storyboard going in first along with substantiation for any claims, then the rough cut checked against the cleared script, and then the finished ad with its clock number checked against everything cleared before it.

An ad can also pick up scheduling restrictions along the way, for instance being kept away from programmes made for children, which matters to the media buyer as much as to the edit. The rough cut stage is the one agencies are tempted to skip, and as far as I understand it Clearcast treats it as optional but encourages it. To be very honest, I read that as a polite warning, because a note at rough cut costs you an edit, while the same note on the finished ad sends you back through the online, very possibly with a new clock number in the week of air.

On timing, Clearcast publishes its current turnaround for each stage in its clearance FAQs, and those numbers move with volume, so I plan backwards from the air date instead of quoting them from memory. For instance, with an illustrative Monday air date, I want the script in about fifteen working days before, the rough cut around ten days out and the finished ad a week out, with the last few days left empty, because one round of notes on the finished ad usually eats them, right.

TV ad clearance in the UK also reaches past linear television advertising, since broadcaster on-demand platforms generally want VOD ads cleared too, so check with the sales house before assuming a VOD-only spot skips the queue. And each submission has an internal review in front of it and a round of notes behind it, so you're really running six checkpoints, and the three Clearcast never sees are where most of the delay gets made.

Why ads get sent back at clearance

From what I've seen in my own agency, the notes come back on small, checkable things that slipped between the cleared script and the finished ad, and only very rarely on the big creative idea.

Claims come first, right, meaning anything a viewer could check, for instance "the fastest", "number one", "up to 50% off" or a price, and each one needs substantiation that matches the exact wording on screen. Supers are the next usual suspect, and Clearcast publishes guidance on how big a super has to be and how long it has to hold, because the edit is where a super gets quietly trimmed when a shot loses eight frames to make the music land. Then there's drift, where the take picked in the mix says a slightly different line, or a new product shot sneaks in at the online, and so on.

You see what I mean here, right, none of those are creative arguments, and a careful person holding the cleared script, the evidence file and a frame-accurate player could have caught every one before the Clearcast submission. The client's legal team usually runs a pass like this anyway, which I covered in getting ad claims cleared by legal, so the real question is whether that pass happens on a proper cut or on a forwarded file.

An internal claims review before your Clearcast submission

Let me rebuild a spot shaped like that broadband one as a worked example, with illustrative claims and timings. Say the 30 second ad has two voiceover claims, "our fastest broadband ever" and "rated five stars by customers", a price super reading "from £25 a month" with a terms line under it, and a legal line on the end frame. That gives you three claims needing evidence and three supers needing a readable hold, all inside 750 frames at 25 frames a second.

Before the rough cut goes anywhere near Clearcast, I upload it into PlayPause as MV1 on the spot's card and set a custom status called Claims review. The producer then drops a frame-accurate comment on the exact frame where each claim is first heard or seen, naming the evidence file behind it and, for the price, the dates it's valid, because a spot cleared in one month can easily air in the next. For supers I use a range comment across the whole hold, so a 3 second hold shows up as 75 frames, say 00:00:21:14 to 00:00:24:14, ready to check against Clearcast's hold guidance.

These time-coded annotations matter more than they sound, because the copywriter can circle the asterisk on the frame and note that the terms line is smaller than on the storyboard or animatic, and the client's legal contact replies in the same thread from a browser, with no account. I @mention the copywriter on every claim since they own the wording, and I'm pretty sure that habit alone would have saved my Thursday call.

For the voiceover, the clickable transcript from AI transcription gets read word for word against the cleared script, and that's the simplest form of ad claims substantiation for video, right, because the evidence supports one sentence and the transcript shows what the ad actually says.

I call the result a claims register, though it's really just the comments on MV1, and it means every claim you submit was matched to its evidence by someone who watched that frame. The internal fixes then go up as MV2, and MV2 is the cut that goes to Clearcast.

Logging Clearcast notes against the exact frame

Clearcast's feedback arrives as written notes, and the reflex is to forward that text straight to the editor, which is exactly how my Thursday call happened, right, because a forwarded note doesn't say which version or frame it means.

So now the producer opens MV2, the exact version that went in, and turns each note into a comment on the frame it refers to, starting every comment with "Clearcast:" so it never mixes with internal notes, and giving the editor an @mention while the card's status moves to Clearcast notes. The catch here is pasting the note word for word, because a paraphrased note is exactly how "our fastest" turns into "the fastest", and a note retold twice isn't really Clearcast's note any more.

If your editor cuts in Premiere Pro, the PlayPause Premiere Pro panel shows those comments inside Premiere and a click jumps the playhead to the frame, while an editor in Resolve or Final Cut works from the notes in the browser next to the timeline. The earlier stages, from offline to master, are in my TV commercial post production process walkthrough.

Showing the fix with version stacks and side by side compare

The fix goes up as MV3 on the same card, which is the point of version stacks and basically version control applied to cuts, right, because the Clearcast notes stay underneath on MV2. The editor replies in each thread with where the change lives, something like "fixed in MV3, super now holds from 00:00:21:14 to 00:00:24:20", and those replies become the paper trail for the resubmission.

Then I open side-by-side version compare with MV2 against MV3, because a clearance fix is the worst possible moment for anyone to slip in an extra creative tweak. Once MV3 differs from MV2 in a way the note didn't ask for, you've made something nobody has cleared, so compare is how I prove the only change is the one Clearcast requested. My post on video version legal approval covers the same idea from the legal side.

Last, I read the MV3 transcript against the cleared script once more, because a re-laid take is a new take, before the finished ad goes back for final clearance.

Keeping the client in the loop without extra calls

My Thursday call only happened because the client couldn't see the state of the spot without asking someone, so everything had to come out live, on a call, at seven in the evening.

Now the client's marketing lead and legal contact get one password-protected review link to the spot's card, and if an older link to a replaced cut is still sitting in someone's inbox, I revoke it instantly so nobody comments on the wrong file. Who-watched analytics shows who opened the link, when and from which city, so I know the legal contact has actually watched MV3 before we resubmit, right.

The rules that repeat for that client go in a Playbook, a document inside PlayPause holding one client's creative style and direction, with the cleared wording for recurring claims in the brand playbook and this campaign's evidence list in a folder playbook as a checklist that isn't done until ticked. I share it as a no-login page, so the client's legal team reads exactly what my editors follow. The wider stages are in my creative approval workflow template, and social cutdowns, which usually skip Clearcast but still need a sign off, follow my social media approval process post.

Where PlayPause fits in broadcast ad clearance

I want that boundary very very clear, right, because Clearcast decides whether the ad airs and your client's legal team decides whether the claims hold up, while a review tool is just where the cut and its comments live so both decisions get made on the right file.

For clearance work I'd put the team on the Agency plan at $19 a month, flat per workspace, because side-by-side version compare, AI transcription, guest version upload and Playbooks all start there, and guest upload lets an outside online house send the fixed cut with a name and email instead of an account. The PlayPause for advertising agencies page covers the rest.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the Clearcast approval process take?

Clearcast publishes the current turnaround for each stage in its clearance FAQs, and it shifts with volume, so check there rather than trusting a number from a blog. I plan backwards from the air date and give the whole thing two to three weeks, with my internal claims review on the calendar too, right, because that's the stage agencies forget to budget for.

Do I have to submit a rough cut to Clearcast?

As far as I understand it, the rough cut stage is optional, so technically you can go from a cleared script straight to the finished ad. I still send one on every spot, because supers and wording get checked on real footage while changes are still cheap, and I'd much rather hear about a short super hold before the online than after the clock number exists.

What counts as substantiation for claims in a TV ad?

Substantiation is the evidence behind anything a viewer could check, like a speed, a ranking, a price or a customer rating, and it goes in with the script. What I watch for is that the evidence matches the exact words in the finished ad, because a voiceover that drifts from "our fastest" to "the fastest" turns a comparison with yourself into a claim against every competitor.

Does PlayPause clear ads or replace Clearcast?

Not at all, and I'd be wary of any tool that said it did. PlayPause does not clear ads, does not connect to Clearcast and holds no compliance certification. What it does is keep the claims review, the Clearcast notes and the fixed versions on one card, with comments pinned to exact frames, so when you resubmit you know precisely which cut you're sending and what changed.

If your next spot is heading into clearance, set up the card and the claims review before the script even goes in. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and you can see what each plan includes on the PlayPause pricing page. At the end of the day, trust me on any level, the first clearance note you log on the exact frame will pay for that setup, does that make sense, right.

So yeah. That's my way of saying it.