ACCORDING to Rule 24 (4) of Pemra Rules 2002, the duration of advertisement breaks in TV programmes shall not be more than three minutes continuously and there must be at least 15 minutes of regular programme between successive commercial breaks.

All TV channels are flouting this rule openly. The duration of most advertisements is much more than three minutes (many times up to seven and eight minutes).

The regular programme duration between breaks is less than 15 minutes. This can be verified any time. It is mind-boggling how this contravention of rule is being tolerated by Pemra authorities and the government.

In a programme of one hour, there are about 30 minutes for advertisements.

These are boring and repeated three or four times during a break.

TV channels should restrict advertisements to 12 minutes a programme of one hour. Heads of political party and the information minister should take up this issue seriously. TV viewers too should protest against this.

Syed M. Nazim

Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014