TRAI restricts advertisement time on TV channels

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a notification yesterday which limited the advertisement time on TV channels.

According to the TRAI notification, no broadcaster is allowed to carry in its broadcast of a programme, advertisements crossing 12 minutes in a clock hour and also any decline of advertisement in any clock hour need not be carried over.

The ads in the clock hour need to consist all types of commercials consisting those promoting the TV channel itself.

The notification states that every broadcaster needs to make sure that the advertisements carried on its channels are just full-screen advertisements and there shall be no part-screen or drop-down advertisement.

These restrictions on advertisements will lower the earnings of the news channels and also make it problematic for them to operate.

Most news channels are running into losses or operating on wafer-thin margins as they have to make huge investments in preparing the news programmes and then bearing the entire cost of uplinking the content to the satellite from where it is downloaded by the multi-service operators.

The notification has come close on the heels of the previous TRAI notification in favour of the multi-service operators (MSOs) giving them the liberty of charging carriage fee from news broadcasters.