[Brekkie]

The lack of ads in Dispatches last night showed why it's important not to have the full 12 minutes of ads per hour quota every hour during primetime (as proposed by OFCOM) - the current 40 minutes over 60 hours means there is the flexibility to go ad free for a couple of hours and run content such as this which may not be advertiser friendly.

Yes, the proposed rules could see displaced ads run outside of primetime again but far less appealing to broadcasters to run ad free content in primetime getting the ad time back at 1am in the morning than moving the ads within the 6-11pm slot.


The same goes for live sport too - especially with whistle to whistle from the beginning to end of the match in both football and rugby now touching the 2 hour mark. With an 8pm kick off current rules means they can get their 40 minutes in with up to 12 minutes in the 6pm, 7pm and 10pm hours and 7 minutes during half time, but relaxing those rules would likely mean they'd only be able to air 43 minutes of ads during primetime meaning any decision to air live sport in primetime needs to be offset with losing up to 17 minutes of ads in primetime - although as ads during sport can usually be sold at a higher value hopefully that keeps it worthwhile.