Television Advertising

A television advertisement is a type of media showed on television which is produced and paid for by an organization, these advertisements convey a message, the general use of a television advertisement is for the promotion of a product or service. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks.

The majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length direct resonse adverts). Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services and ideas since the beginning of television.

United KingdomIn the UK, the British Broadcasting Corporation is funded by a licence fee and only features adverts that promote its own programming. On the other channels that allow other advertising besides their own has a specific amount of airtime allowed by the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom for advertising. The overall average is 7 minutes per hour, with limits of 12 minutes for any particular clock hour, in the evening this changes to 8 minutes per hour between 6pm and 11pm.

With 42-minute American exports to Britain, such as Grey's Anatomy which are given a one hour slot, nearly a third of the slot is taken up by adverts or trailers for other programs, movies and products.

Live imported television programs such as WWE Raw show promotional material that is shown in place of U.S. advert breaks.

In 2008, Ofcom announced a Review of television advertising and teleshopping regulation, with a view to possibly changing their code, Rules on the Amount and Distribution of Advertising (RADA), which regulates the duration, frequency and restriction of adverts on television.