Television channels will not be able to show advertisements for more than twelve minutes in an hour as per the latest regulations issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday.
In a statement, TRAI said as per the Standards of Quality of Service Regulations 2012, "The duration of advertisements in the TV channels is to be limited to 12 minutes per clock hour."
Any shortfall of advertisement duration in any clock hour cannot be carried over, the telecom regulator said.
TRAI has also specified in its statement that the minimum time gap between any two consecutive advertisement breaks should not be less than 15 minutes while in case of movies, this time gap should be a minimum of 30 minutes.
The conditions shall not apply in case of live broadcast of a sporting event, it said. "The advertisements during live broadcast of a sporting event should be only during the breaks in the sporting action," the TRAI statement said.
To make the viewer's TV watching experience better TRAI has also specified that advertisements should be only full screen.
"Part-screen and drop-down advertisements would not be permitted," the statement said. To remove the possibility of an advertiser trying to use a higher sound level to grab attention, TRAI has incorporated another prohibitory regulation.
"The audio level of the advertisements carried in TV channels not to be higher than the audio level of the programmes being broadcast in the channel," the statement said.