The news the TV regulator didn’t want you to notice?
It’s always instructive to see what gets sneaked out on the last Friday before Christmas, particularly when the press release drops at lunchtime. If ever you want to know what the powers-that-be hope will fly under the radar, then that’s a great indicator.
At first glance, I think this clause on how much airtime can be used for promotional mesages is the key one:
“Exemptions from time limits on non-program matter apply in relation to promotions that are 10 seconds or shorter and other material, including program listings and station IDs, which are 30 seconds or shorter.”
It may not sound important, but as The ABC’s Media Watch pointed out in October, this potentially means stations can run as many 10 second ads as they want, if they dress them up as heavily sponsor-branded show promos.
Which is of course just want the viewers want. (On the plus side, at least they are now going to be allowed to register complaints online).
No doubt the free to air networks will be grateful for their little Christmas present though.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Not that I give a rat’s but don’t they realise that they are alienating the very market they are trying to capture? I and many of my work associates have long since given up watching their shit and we are exactly the primo target audience that they are chasing. Baby boomers with disposable income and our grown up children who fit perfectly into their peak advertising demographic. But we have turned it off and the kids are playing ipods and computer games instead because we are sick of the never ending flow of poorly written and crapily produced television advertising that bombards us endlessly, particularly the shameless self promotion of the TV stations.
This clever ploy by ACMA, which is purely a sham organisation acting in the interests of the networks and not the viewers, will just ensure that more of us ‘demographics’ don’t even make the radar let alone fly under it. Ram them 10 second and 30 second promos through guys, we just don’t give a shit any more. We switched off a long time ago.
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…not to mention the other gift of now being able to run an extra two minutes of adverting per hour on their second channels…
How they’re going to fit 62 minutes of advertising into an hour is anybody’s guess.
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Good pick up, Tim! But oh so typical ACMA, Merry Christmas to the networks by allowing more advertising while viewers continued to get done over. I thought ACMA acting on behalf of the Government should be looking after the viewer’s interests? Clearly not…
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