Industry representative body, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation has expressed serious concerns over a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI's) recent notification that calls for capping the advertisements to 12 minutes per hour on TV channels.

The telecom sector regulator is considering imposing a limit of 12 minutes for advertisements on televisions channels in the country to control the amount of time per hour used for advertising purposes on channels. The IBF has called for the withdrawal of the notification and added that it is not against the decision but wants the authorities to wait and evaluate the value of advertising after completing the digitalisation process.

"The trickle back effect from the first stage of digitisation is yet to begin. Carriage fees introduced in 2008 remain a burden, especially for the more than 500 smaller channel operators," the IBF statement said.

The industry body with TV broadcasters as its members said that the TV broadcasting industry has been suffering due to the effects of the global economic slowdown and advertising is the main source of revenue for the firms in the industry. It said that it is working with the regulator to determine the advertising duration per hour on televisions in the country, since several months