TV broadcasters warned to stick to ad time limit
WHILE product placements during TV shows are not subject to control by the authorities, broadcasters must strictly comply with current regulations by advertising within the limits of the law, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NB
Meanwhile, the limit on advertising time slots appears to have become another matter of debate between the broadcasting regulator and Channel 3 TV station, with the two parties having divergent opinions over the calculation method.
The issue was raised at a workshop held yesterday by the NBTC, at which all free-to-air digital-TV broadcasters were invited to brainstorm ideas about the permitted advertising time slots.
Under current broadcasting rules, free-to-air TV operators in both the analogue and digital terrestrial TV systems are allowed to sell no more than 12 minutes per hour of advertising time, while pay-TV channels are allowed to sell only six minutes per hour.
To ensure a level playing field in the industry, Supinya Klangnarong, a member of the NBTC’s broadcasting committee, said the permitted time slots must be calculated on a regular hourly basis, not on a specific programme basis.
However, a legal representative from Bangkok Entertainment Company – the operator of Channel 3 – disagreed with the NBTC’s calculation method. The country’s second-largest TV network said it supported the idea of counting TV commercials during specific programmes.
Based on the NBTC’s method and its monitoring on May 14, Supinya said her panel found that during Channel 3’s prime-time TV drama that day, the station had aired commercials for 13 minutes per hour, which was more than the limit in the broadcasting regulations.
The monitoring team also found that the operator of Mono 29 channel had recently aired about 18 minutes of advertising per hour, she said.
