TRAI & NBA standoff on ad cap likely to be resolved by Feb 11 '16

As per TRAI guidelines, channels need to restrict ads per hour to 12 minutes. The matter has been an issue of contention between NBA and TRAI for some time now.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had been given the deadline of 11th February, 2016 to resolve the issue pertaining to ad cap. MIB is under pressure to come to a solution with petitioners like news, regional and music broadcasters looking for a solution. Hearing in the court will start only if they fail to come up with a solution.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had indicated in January that he was not in favour of 12-minute ad cap rule providing relief to the news, regional and music channels. Prakash Javadekar, a Minister of State in the Modi Government, had also stated that the government was thinking of excusing free-to-air (FTA) channels but that too never materialised.

The case, as is known, is filed by NBA, which believes that TRAI does not have any say in deciding the commercial airtime on channels. TRAI had earlier ordered all channels to keep a track of the advertisements run on their channels. Apart from NBA, some channels too have raised their voice against ad cap rule and fear it will affect their advertising revenue to large extent.  Meanwhile, as per TRAI reports, many channels are violating the rule by running ads for more than 12 minutes in an hour on their channel and therefore action needs to be taken.

The channels are optimistic that the matter would be resolved by 11the February 2016. The matter has been postponed several times since it reached Delhi High Court in 2013.