ITV And Channel 4 Push for Longer Ad Breaks

ITV and Channel 4 are staging a fight back against streaming services by lobbying the government for the introduction of extended TV advert breaks.

Intense competition from providers such as Amazon and Netflix has led to major PSB’s including Channel 4 and ITV meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to propose increasing the current cap of seven minutes per hour, in a bid to drive more advertising investment back to traditional TV ad slots.

Commercial competitors such as Sky have a cap of nine minutes, whilst European limits are currently a lot higher at twelve minutes.

Commentators are cautiously optimistic about the impact of any such change believing that whilst it could help to level the playing field, increasing advertising time availability could negatively impact on the market price for these slots.

There is also a wider concern that any increase will prove unpopular with viewers and result in them transferring to other subscription or BBC services which is the very outcome the PSB’s are hoping to avoid.

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