Hearing in ad cap case adjourned till March 29

Further hearing in the 12-minute ad cap case has got delayed with the Delhi High Court adjourning the case till March 29, 2016. The large number of pending cases before the Court was cited as the reason for putting off the case to another date.

The case had last come up for hearing on November 27, 2015. During that hearing, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) had informed that talks were on with the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and other stakeholders on the ad cap issue. In the November hearing, the case was adjourned till February 11, 2016.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) call to implement a rule allowing only 12 minutes of advertisements per hour post the government’s initiative of a nationwide digitization process was challenged by News Broadcasters Association (NBA), along with a few general entertainment channels like 9X Media, Sun TV Network, Eenadu Television, and Raj Television, among others.

According to media planners, only 15 per cent of the 380 broadcasters in India, who monitor 780 channels among them, presently follow the 12-minute ad cap rule while the rest still await the verdict on the same.

Media planners state that general entertainment broadcasters, including Network18, Multi Screen Media (MSM) and Zee Network are still following 14-minute ad breaks per hour of 12 minutes.

On the other hand, news broadcasters are tagging along the 20-minute advertising scheme.

“General broadcasters are awaiting the hearing on the matter before they start bringing down their advertisement time. But, with the festival season coming to an end, broadcasters are expected to eventually bring down their advertisement time,” said a Mumbai-based media planner.