Ofcom Rules For Rise In Ad Break Length

Advertising options around televised sport have increased after watchdog Ofcom relaxed its rules on the amount of time allowed for commercial breaks to be shown during programming, with the limit rising to 12 minutes per hour.

The major commercial channels will now be able to show 12 minutes of adverts per hour of programming instead of 7 minutes for certain broadcasts, providing even greater interruption for the viewing public.

The moves comes despite research proving viewers’ dislike of commercial breaks which will now make up around 20% of the running time of an individual programme.

Ofcom’s decision comes to appease cash-strapped media channels’ desire to drive increased advertising revenues to pay for programming.

However with new technology and innovations such as Sky-Plus enabling an increasing number of viewers to edit out the adverts altogether, the move by Ofcom is unlikely to quell the calls to relax the rules on product placement within programming itself.