ISBA has said that it is “disappointed” with the ITC’s decision not to extend the amount of advertising minutage on commercial TV (see ITC Rejects Extra Minutage Proposal). The advertiser organisation believes that its submission, which ran to over sixty pages, actually called for “little more than the regulatory formalisation of what is already widespread industry custom and practice.”
In a statement ISBA says that the broadcasters’ responses, which argued against an increase, were “overly-influenced by short-termism” and that these companies will “actually soon start to seek the very same relaxations” which it has been calling for. ISBA says that it is now considering its next steps.
Bob Wootton, director of media services at ISBA, told Newsline that he would not be drawn on what these steps could constitute. He went on to say that the body will sit down with its members over the next few weeks to consider a “number of options.”
While an application to the European Court is a possibility, it is generally regarded that this process would be too complicated and time-consuming. Another route would be a judicial review, such as the one the failed C5 bidders launched last year. In this they sought to prove that the ITC’s decision had been flawed but the High Court rejected this and allowed the licence to be run by Channel 5 Broadcasting.
Andrew Canter, broadcast director at Mediapolis, remained philosophical. He said that though a minutage increase may temporarily halt TV inflation, the change could attract more advertisers to TV, thereby again increasing demand. Canter went on to say that by putting more ads in breaks the effectiveness of those ads could be diminished. He favours the US method whereby commercial breaks are run just before the credits to increase impacts and believes this is a simpler method of alleviating the problem.
David Cuff, broadcaster at Initiative Media, said that as multi-channel TV viewers and advertisers had accepted nine minutes per hours on satellite and cable, he “could not fathom the ITC decision.” He also pointed out that ITV regularly runs up against the EU maximum of 12 minutes of ads in some peak-time slots.
John Raad, director for media affairs at the IPA, echoed ISBA’s sentiments by saying that he regretted the ITC’s decision.
