Finally, What I read about TRAI planning to make TV Experience more for serials and enjoyment for end users is coming to reality. Today TRAI rolled out regulation for the amount of advertisement that was being shown in any program. According to my experience it was no less than 50 percent of allotted time for the serial which resulted me to switch between programs and not sit and watch adverts.
According to the document available at TRAI Official Website :
- Broadcasters & Channels like Sony, HBO etc cannot display more than 12 Minutes of Advertisement in one hour.
- In case, less than 12 minutes of advertisement are shown, the left time cannot be carried over to the next hour.
- You will no more miss the after action environment for Sports i.e. Many a times broadcasters used to roll out adverts as soon as wicket was gone, or after a goal. This always used to kill half of the fun. The advertisement can only be shown when there is a real break at the Sporting Event. This is only for Live Sports.
- Time difference between two advertisements will be 15 Minutes minimum, but in case of movies, this is 30 minutes minimum.
- Many channels started running a small banner advert at the bottom of the tv screen even when the program was live. This was a distraction and has been banned. Only Full Screen adverts will be displayed.
- Tired of the sudden increase in volume, when the advert started ? TRAI has capped this too. None of the advertisements can use more volume than the program itself.
So now if you do that maths :
- For a TV Serial of 30 Minutes, You will have max of 6 minute advertisement, which either can be of complete 6 minutes or 3 minutes slot every 15 minutes.
- For the Movie which spans for 1.30 Hours, You will have Three Advertisement Max which can be of 4 minutes each.
I am pretty sure that as a TV Viewer, these regulations are going to be welcomed by many of consumers, and if you think that this might shoot up the price of channel, TRAI had already capped this after rolling out costing for Digitization of Cable. However for the Advertiser the price for displaying advertisement will increase for sure.