Ad ban plan 'threatens TV shows'

TV news and children's programmes on commercial channels could be threatened by a plan to ban adverts in some shows, a House of Lords report has warned.

 

The European Union has proposed getting rid of ad breaks in all children's and news shows lasting 30 minutes or less.

 

The House of Lords European Union Committee said it was "concerned about the likely implications of these rules for free-to-air programming".

 

Commercial broadcasters ITV and Five have said their output will suffer.

 

"The economics of children's programming are fairly fragile already," said Martin Stott, Five's deputy head of corporate affairs, when giving evidence in October.

 

The application of a no-ads rule, he continued, would mean the channel would produce less original children's shows and have to rely on "cheaper imports".

 

'A very strange thing'

 

The impact on news broadcasting, said ITV's controller of regulatory affairs Magnus Brooke, would be no less grave.

 

The rules, he said, would "penalise the provision of core public service content and make it much harder to generate any revenue at all from providing that content".

 

The proposed rules, contained within the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive, says children's programming and news programmes should be interrupted only once every half hour "provided that such programmes exceed 30 minutes to begin with".

 

Because news and children's programmes typically tend to be 30 minutes long, said Mr Stott, "it would be impossible to have a commercial break".

 

Mr Brooke described the directive - which would affect all of ITV's main news bulletins - as a "very strange thing".

 

"There has been a centre break in the 10 o'clock news since 1967, with no obvious viewer detriment or complaint," he said.

 

MEPs narrowly voted in favour of the amendment in December 2006 by 324 to 323.

 

If the directive is approved by the EU, the UK will have three years to bring it into effect.

 

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/6331781.stm

 

I don't know what Channel 4 & Sky will do with episodes of the simpsons/futuramana as they only last for 23 minutes including credits.

 

It's good news on one hand as you have less adverts, but bad news on the other hand.

The European Union has proposed getting rid of ad breaks in all children's and news shows lasting 30 minutes or less.

 

what the crap?? what kind of organization do they think they are? I mean, sure.. I don't like commercials, but what sense is there in banning a ridiculous thing like commercials. dumbest regulations ever. HUGE waste of government...... I can see a bunch of old men sitting around a table thinking..... hmmm, we don't have any laws really, what should we do?? OH I KNOW! LET'S BAN COMMERCIALS! :o wow, genius..

 

anyway, I hope they ban some other new law like no banner ads on forums with less than 50,000 members. shoot, that would be awesome too!

 

Here's what gets me. If someone wants to sell pornography or advertise a 1-800-talk-sex line on TV, that's FINE. but if someone wants to put commercials in between the weather and the top story to generate revenue for BOTH the TV company AND hopefully the advertisers, well... tough luck.