Data about average duration of advts. per hour on TV channels during peak hours released by TRAI

Have you ever wondered why you have to sit through advertisements while watching your favourite prime time shows on TV despite having to pay a monthly subscription fee to your local cable operator or DTH provider. It’s not like they are providing you the service for free anyway, like free Apps on your cell phone are free because they get their revenue from advertisers, then why can’t the same concept apply to Pay channels.

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Well the answer is fairly simple, the free to air channels get their total revenue only from advertisers while pay channels get their revenue from a dual source, one part from the advertisers and one half from the cable or DTH operators, who in turn recover it from you in the form of subscription fee. But then who regulates how long an advertisement break can be, what percentage of a program duration can be comprised of Ads. The same TRAI which functions to regulate telecom operators for DOT also regulates the channels for Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB).

The telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) has released the details about  average duration of Ads that are telecast on commercial channels during an hour of broadcast during prime time 7PM to 10PM. The data released by TRAI is as follows.

Also read: A handy guide to Satellites used for broadcasting DTH signals in India

Data for News Channels for the period 30 March To 29 June 2015