India’s TRAI reviews ad-minutes
March 21, 2012
By Chris Forrester
India’s media regulator TRAI is looking at the altering the number of advertising minutes sold on Indian TV. A consultation paper (“Issues Related to Advertisements in TV Channels”) has been supplied to pay-TV and FTA channel operators asking for their comments.
TRAI is proposing – for discussion – that FTA channels should be limited to a maximum of 12 minutes in any hour. For pay-TV operators their proposal is that this drops to 6 minutes per hour.
There could be further limitations. For example, no hour of television should have more than 4 ad-breaks. Movies could be subject to tighter limits, of no more than 3 ad-breaks per hour, and at least 30 minutes between each break.
News broadcasters are not exempt. They could be limited to no more than two rolling news-tickers per channel, and that not more than 10 percent of the screen is devoted to tickers.