Ad cap hits Indian news TV

Indian TV news channels are already being adversely affected by October's impending advertising cap, as revenues and ad rates have fallen during their preparations for a limit of 12 minutes of advertising an hour.

Since the beginning of July, around 100 news channels have cut their commercial airtime from 25-30 minutes an hour to 20 minutes and executives are now reporting revenue down by 15-20%.

"The situation for news channels is indeed very grave. This [the cap] will reduce the saleable inventory to less than half of the current levels for news channels," Ashok Venkatramani, chief executive of Media Content and Communications Services, told Livemint.

The vice chairman of NDTV Group was even more blunt. "From 1st of October, the situation may be disastrous," said KVL Narayan Rao, adding that while inventory would be halved, ad rates could not be doubled.

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