Ofcom is allowing broadcasters to make up for lost time following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Broadcasters are being allowed to screen extra adverts under certain circumstances.
The death of the Queen resulted in many commercial broadcasters either suspending ad-breaks or filling them with a plain logo. By removing ad-breaks, some hour-long Channel 4 and Channel 5 programmes were compressed into 45 minute slots. Other broadcasters opted to keep normal running times, but fill the ad slots with a holding slate.
Some broadcasters have already been observed broadcasting longer than normal ad-breaks in the aftermath of the Queen’s State Funeral. This has resulted in ITV’s News At Ten moving to 10:05pm.
Now Ofcom has confirmed the rules allowing broadcasters to screen more adverts.
The exemption applies only to advertising forfeited between 8th-19th September 2022 (inclusive). Ofcom says:
- broadcasters must be able to demonstrate to them that the advertising losses were incurred during this period;
- recoupment must be completed within one month of the day of the Queen’s funeral, i.e. by 06:00 on 20th October 2022;
- the recouped advertising must be of a similar or less value to that forfeited;
- broadcasters must submit their recoupment proposals in writing to Ofcom.
But broadcasters must still not show more than 12 minutes of advertising per hour. As a result, the extra adverts will be most notable in early evening and late night, when some channels don’t normally fill their full advertising quota.