The Hindu : National : Channels run without ads

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Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007
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National

Channels run without ads

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: With neither broadcasters nor advertisers blinking on the issue of surcharge imposed on advertisements by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation to meet the increasing operational costs, most channels on Tuesday ran without advertisements.

Matters came to a head on Tuesday with the expiry of the IBF deadline of October 15 midnight by when advertisers had to sign up for the new tariff regime that entailed an additional surcharge of 25 per cent. The IBF had offered a month’s waiver to all those advertisers who came on board by the midnight of October 15. With few advertisers signing up, market-watchers said less than a quarter of the advertisements that went on air at this time of the year were seen across television networks on Tuesday.

Primarily, the channels filled up their advertisement slots with promotional campaigns of their programmes and advertisements from the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity.

While filling up the advertisement slots is not a problem for channels, the loss of revenue is huge; more so since the stalemate is coinciding with the festive season and most of the big advertisers have refused to accept the surcharge. There was no interface between the advertisers and the IBF on Tuesday. However, the Mumbai-based Indian Society of Advertisers is understood to be considering legal action against the Foundation. Among the big networks which went without advertising on Tuesday were Star, Zee and Sony.

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