The report on Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s proposal to reduce the duration and frequency of TV advertisements in TV programmes provided cheerful news to regular viewers (“Ad brake for TV pay channels,” March 21). In fact, no pay channel follows the present norm of limiting ads to 12 minutes per hour. Popular entertainment programmes like family serials with a duration of half an hour often have eight to 12 minutes of ads and three breaks instead of the prescribed two. Since almost all channels have the same clock time for the break, changing channels leads the viewer from one add to another and traps him completely.
The question of revenue raised by pay channels owing to less ad time can be handled by increasing ad rates and decreasing production costs spent on opulent sets and extravagant costumes. Advertisers will also benefit from limited availability of ad time since viewers’ attention span and the recall value of ads fall steeply with increase in the duration of ad breaks.
Y G Chouksey, Pune
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