Has anyone actually tried to make it through a prime time commerical tv broadcast lately, without finding some method of disposing of the ads? Maybe i’m just slowly becoming more and more curmudgeonly, but it seems like the amount of advertising has been steadily increasing for years now. Oh for the good old days before deregulation when channels would broadcast four thirty second commercials and then kindly return to the matter at hand. Channel 7 seems to be a prime offender, and after suffering through yet another completely fractured episode of Lost, I thought it might be time to have a look at the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice.
Buried deep within section 5 are the actual guidelines for the amount of ‘non-program matter’ that is allowed and quite frankly it’s more than a little disturbing. It’s not only the fact that broadcasters can air up to 16 minutes of npm per hour (reduced to a maximum of 15 minutes from 6-10pm - replete with a mind bending set of conditions), nor is it the fact that all times are based on scheduled material as opposed to material actually broadcast. No, the thing which has really got to me is the baffling list of exemptions. It’s not just the good old fashioned ‘community service announcements’ that avoid being counted towards the npm total. Political broadcasts, infomercials or ’shopping guides’ and the despicable practice of superimposing text or images over part of the screen all escape the shame of being npm, as does any ad for a network which contains no reference to actual broadcast times.
Ahhhh, sweet nourishing loopholes.
It would probably be less galling if the npm in question was more like the Honda - impossible dream ad or the sensational Tooheys Extra Dry ad but more often than not it’s the dreaded ‘Stiff and Stiffer’, truly the worst ad in the history of human existence.
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