Last week we noted the temporary increase in advertising on the three main commercial channels.
ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 all lost some advertising time following the death of HM The Queen and during the period of mourning.
With Ofcom’s approval they can now make up some of the “lost minutes” by running more adverts than normal.
The big rule is that they still cannot have more than 12 minutes in a clock hour.
So does this offer us a taste of what things may be like if Ofcom allows a permanent increase in the amount of advertising on the three main commercial PSBs?
We looked carefully at advertising between 5pm and 12am on ITV between Friday and Sunday.
Friday
There was 12 minutes of advertising in the 5pm, 7pm, 8pm, 9pm and 11pm hours.
The 6pm hour contained two breaks – one of 4 minutes between the regional and national news and one of 3 minutes 30 seconds at approximately 6.45pm.
If a full 12 minutes were to be allowed in each hour, the likelihood is that 2 more breaks would be included totalling 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
In the 10pm hour, there was 8 minutes of advertising – 4 minutes before News at Ten and 4 minutes after the regional news. Again 4 minutes would need to be found to “max out” each hour.
It should be noted that internal breaks can normally only include 3 minutes 30 of ads but there is no cap on the amount during breaks between programmes.
Saturday
There was one “trail break” at around 5.55pm which could have been extended and replaced by a 3 minute 30 seconds ad break.
After 6pm, only the 8pm hour didn’t include a full 12 minutes of ads – it only included 10 minutes and 30 seconds worth.
Sunday
Between 5pm and 12am there was almost as much advertising as would be allowable after any potential increase.
The 6pm hour fell slightly short by 30 seconds.
It’s certainly interesting to get a sense of what things could potentially be like in a few months time.
Saturday and Sunday evenings on ITV would hardly be any different – although a little reconfiguration could be needed.
There is also the question of whether programme durations might need to be tweaked to ensure the schedule runs to time and that there is room for promotions – some promo time has been sacrificed to allow for the temporary increase in adverts.
The broader economic arguments over whether it would be beneficial to allow more advertising need proper scrutiny.
But given that the public hardly seem to have noticed the current rise, it’s hard to suggest viewers will lose out too much. Perhaps some newspaper journalists need to watch more TV?
Ofcom is seeking views until next week over whether to look at relaxing the restrictions affecting advertising on PSBs. It will then decide whether to run a full consultation on any proposed changes.
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