[Brekkie]

Currently the UK still has EU rules on advertising within Children's programmes, that prevent  centre breaks during any programme of 30 minutes or less. Nickelodeon and others get around this by, in a typical hour, listing one programme in a 31 minute slot (can contain ads) and another in a 29 minute slot (cannot contain ads).

It really is time that was adjusted and common sense took it back to 30 minutes.  If they want to enforce it set the rules on programme length rather than slot length, so a 22 minute programme couldn't be split.

Does anyone know the history of the ad rules in the UK.   Pretty sure when ITV started it was just two spots per ad break (although ads could be a minute long), and it feels like as a kid they were generally 2 or 3 minutes in the late 80s/early 90s before the standard 3:30 + 0:20 promo came into play around the turn of the century.    Think it was 2001 the additional break came into hour long programmes and longer, with another break added to programmes 70 minutes or longer towards the end of the decade.


One of the reasons I don't agree with the OFCOM proposals is basically maxing out on the adverts leaves very little room for innovation, experimenting with lighter ad loads and airing programmes which don't lend themselves to 12 minutes of ads an hour (i.e. live sport) - though I guess the counter argument is if airing less ads can be proven to be cost neutral they'll do it anyway and sacrifice the ad time.  

Plus of course other than less ads in news the PSBs don't particularly take advantage now of being able to show less ads - ITV for example could have run Dancing on Ice with one or two less ad breaks in recent years but they prefer to break and air promos instead, arguably prepping viewers for this point in time where they can replace promos with adverts anyway.

[Neil Jones]

Does anyone know the history of the ad rules in the UK.   Pretty sure when ITV started it was just two spots per ad break (although ads could be a minute long), and it feels like as a kid they were generally 2 or 3 minutes in the late 80s/early 90s before the standard 3:30 + 0:20 promo came into play around the turn of the century.    Think it was 2001 the additional break came into hour long programmes and longer, with another break added to programmes 70 minutes or longer towards the end of the decade.

Believe it used to be as low as six (or eight?) minutes per hour at one point, probably back in the sixties, eventually rising to the 12 we have today.

The "three breaks per hour long programme" thing is relatively recent, probably 2006 I believe, don't think it was as early as 2001.

[Kunst]

Does anyone know the history of the ad rules in the UK.   Pretty sure when ITV started it was just two spots per ad break (although ads could be a minute long), and it feels like as a kid they were generally 2 or 3 minutes in the late 80s/early 90s before the standard 3:30 + 0:20 promo came into play around the turn of the century.    Think it was 2001 the additional break came into hour long programmes and longer, with another break added to programmes 70 minutes or longer towards the end of the decade.

Believe it used to be as low as six (or eight?) minutes per hour at one point, probably back in the sixties, eventually rising to the 12 we have today.

The "three breaks per hour long programme" thing is relatively recent, probably 2006 I believe, don't think it was as early as 2001.

No, posts clearly demonstrate it was in 2000-1 changes occurred, as commercial PSBs went from an average of 7,5 mins per hour between 18:00-23:00, to an average of 8 mins, so minutage increased, and broadcasters were able to "digitalize" their main channels, with 3 breaks per hour.
This was because of ITV asking something in return from ITC for the News at Ten return.
ITV benefited of this the most, clearly.

Initially, until 2009 (?), Internal breaks used to be placed at strange times, as the infamous 20:mins rules occurred in the EU, where you had to wait 20 mins between each interval on the internal and breaks.

[Brekkie]

Yes, so with hour long shows you'd often get 6 minute first and last parts to accommodate that and US dramas would often see ads inserted midway through the parts they came in rather than using 3 of the 5/6 ad points they had in the US.

Do many digital channels actually take advantage of the extra break in half hour shows? ABC1 famously did it instead mid-noughties but of the mainstream digital channels I've only known 5Star to do it.

[Brekkie]

Sky and Paramount have come out opposing any changes to the ad rules, stating that it would see ad spend move from smaller channels to larger ones - a reason change was rejected previosuly. They also say it will be at the expense of news coverage on ITV1.

rxtvinfo.com 

More adverts on TV: Sky, Paramount object to plans > RXTV info
Plans to allow some of the UK's biggest channels to broadcast more adverts …
  Source: rxtvinfo.com

Still think C4 arguing that it would mean less ad breaks for viewers as they would drop ads between shows in favour of 30 seconds more ads in each ad break is a hollow argument when the current 40 minutes in primetime arrangement gives them the flexibility to largely do that anyway.

[Kunst]

Sky and Paramount have come out opposing any changes to the ad rules, stating that it would see ad spend move from smaller channels to larger ones - a reason change was rejected previosuly.  They also say it will be at the expense of news coverage on ITV1.

rxtvinfo.com 


Still think C4 arguing that it would mean less ad breaks for viewers as they would drop ads between shows in favour of 30 seconds more ads in each ad break is a hollow argument when the current 40 minutes in primetime arrangement gives them the flexibility to largely do that anyway.

But they don't have the flexibility to schedule 12 minutes per hour though (all the time I mean), which given the fact the programmes are long the way they are to have 12 minutes per hour, becomes problematic.

Especially at the likes of 6pm, with almost ad-less Hollyoaks and not so ad-loaded Simpsons.

Commercial channels of course are opposed, but overall, I don't understand the general concerns that much, outside of less news being produced (mostly 5 mins less).

[Kunst]

Don't get me wrong, we all would love to have ad less operations, but we're talking about a relatively small increase, in an increasingly difficult economic climate.

And we don't pay for these channels, at the end of the day, however public these channels are.

Maybe that's my Italianness, given here the commercial operations (outside of RAI) already run more than 12 mins of advertising at peak times (by showing less of them before 8-9pm), "thanks" to new EU laws, already applied in many countries.

That's annoying, but 12 minutes is the standard in the UK and beyond.

An annoyance, but a relatively minor one, given the current streaming era too.

Let's see, but I agree with ITV and Channel 4 that other commercial operations are exaggerating for the sake of it. Paramount likely has an interest in the pay TV business to protect, that's why they are opposed.

Sky really should have "no say" on news being ad-heavy, given Sky News

[Brekkie]

But they don't have the flexibility to schedule 12 minutes per hour though (all the time I mean), which given the fact the programmes are long the way they are to have 12 minutes per hour, becomes problematic.

Especially at the likes of 6pm, with almost ad-less Hollyoaks and not so ad-loaded Simpsons.

Commercial channels of course are opposed, but overall, I don't understand the general concerns that much, outside of less news being produced (mostly 5 mins less).

The point is though under current arrangements they could focus on their core hours of 6-7 and 8-11, airing all their ad quota within that period with no needs for breaks at the top of the hours.


I don't object to more ads in primetime - but I do object to the proposed 50% increase.   That is far more noticeable than we're being led to believe as really it's only at the weekend ITV air programmes with breaks full of trailers and C4 going from airing as little as 4 minutes of actual ads between 6-8pm on weeknight to 24 minutes is a six fold increase.

I think an increase to 9 minutes an hour on average in primetime is a fair compromise which would barely be noticed - and still gives flexibility to both pack ads around high profile programming and run things ad free when required too.

One thing for sure if if they're given their full ad quota we're not going to see new content commissioned for those hours which are currently generally neglected.   Indeed perhaps with commissioning issues at the forefront at the moment perhaps allowing more ads in original content and having tighter restrictions on repeat content would make sure viewers get value for money.

[Kunst]

I agree, but probably there are other factors taken into consideration, and OFCOM realizes that giving channels the same amount of advertising is more "democratic", given the current economic downturn and the fact they have to compete with so many more channels showing more ads than they possibly could.

Especially with the likes of Channel 4, which are dealing with things catastrophically.

I agree that laziness may bring them to not change anything schedule-wise, but still, had this happened earlier (and it really should've been: the current averages are unstable and too restrictive), at least, this would have probably stopped ITV from showing Teleshopping at 1am and not investing in some ad-less slots on let's say, weekends at 6pm.

ITV shows a lot of trailers on these ad-less slot on weekends, as C4 does at 6pm and 6:30pm on weekdays, given the tight scheduling structure: so, what is going to change there after all?
Are adverts so much worse than back-to-back trailers? I find the former more "acceptable"

Overall, the only real "shock" might be to get an ad break during the news, but they could still think about other techniques to make this change less noticeable, as showing an internal ad break at :25 rather than :12 during the news.

They still can't schedule ad breaks freely during news (only one each 30 mins, as it's the case for films and children's programmes).

[Kunst]

Some things to be noticed

I noticed that on many channels now, there's no ad break (I mean in terms of advertising) before the top of the hour: just some promos (1 or 2) and the idents leading to the next show.
This makes the length of the internal breaks heavier, more or less 4'30 mins to 5'30 mins, with 4 mins of pure advertising (non-promos, non-stings, non-sponsors) at the first quarter, then at the second quarter, and the third quarter (which means 12 mins in total, as permitted by the COSTA rules)
This can also impact two 30 mins shows at :00 and :30, so that the :30 show often airs at around :32/:33 TX: as on the E4 double bills.

This mostly impacts non-PSB operations, since PSBs are "forced" to have a 1'30 external ad break before the top of the hour (not always though), due to length of internal ad breaks in non-films being restricted to 3'30 by the COSTA laws.

Some channels though still have external ad breaks at the TOTH and less long internal ad breaks as a consequences: e.g. the Narrative ones (Great TV, POP) and the Sky ones; the latter probably in order to make the channels look more premium (there each advertising break is long 3 mins regardless if internal and external, most of the time at least).

This did not used to be the case in the past: some time before the 2010, even on digital channels, there still used to be an external advertising break before the top of the hour with slightly shorter internal advert breaks