Commercial broadcasters attack Ofcom advertising proposals

Commercial broadcasters have attacked plans by the UK media watchdog to permit public service rivals such as ITV to increase their advertising allowance, saying this would hurt news output and viability of smaller channels.

Coba, the industry body that represents broadcasters and on-demand services such as Sky and Disney, said on Tuesday that the proposals by Ofcom could result in the loss of almost half an hour of news coverage per weekday.

In April, Ofcom set out proposals to allow public service broadcasters to show more minutes of advertising on their primary channels after considering the potential effect on audiences and the wider market.

The primary channels for PSBs, such as ITV, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5, are restricted to a maximum average of seven minutes of adverts per hour of television. Other channels, however, are allowed to run up to nine minutes of ads.

Ofcom has proposed bringing rules for all broadcasters in line but keeping some restrictions for PSB channels, which would limit the number of internal breaks allowed in programmes.

The watchdog said that “stricter advertising restrictions on PSB channels are no longer justified or proportionate”, and that it was seeking industry views on the proposals.

Ofcom research has found that the public was not overly sensitive to increases in advertising minutes but was more likely to notice a rise in the number of ad breaks.

Broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4 have pushed for looser restrictions to boost revenues when many advertisers are tightening their budgets due to the cost of living crisis. 

Coba said that Ofcom’s plan could result in 115 hours of public service news programming being cut from schedules each year. The industry group also argued that it “would have a significant impact on commercial revenues across the broadcasting sector”.

It also warned the change could “threaten the viability of smaller commercial channels, potentially undermining media plurality”.

Coba executive director Adam Minns said: “We are vehemently opposed to these proposals from Ofcom. These proposals are ill thought out and unnecessary, and are not even supported by all public service broadcasters.

“The result will be to erode the most important aspect of the public service broadcasting system: news.”

Public service broadcasters rejected the analysis by Coba. ITV said there were other regulations in place that protected the availability and quality of PSB news.

These included news obligations set out in PSB licences, as well as general rules that apply to broadcasters on the number of interruptions allowed in programmes.

“ITV broadcasts over 1,300 hours of news and current affairs a year. In 2022, we extended our evening news bulletins by an additional half an hour each day, significantly increasing the amount of news we broadcast well beyond our quota obligation.”

Ofcom said: “We will consider all responses to our consultation before reaching our final decision.”

Channel 4 said the analysis was “pure conjecture”, adding: “Channel 4 broadcasts more news hours than our regulatory obligation of 208 hours per year and any proposed changes will not affect Channel 4 News which is of vital importance to British audiences.”