Several established television specialty services are scrambling to play catch-up to their peers by asking Canada’s broadcasting watchdog for permission to air 12 minutes of advertising each hour, up from the eight minutes they currently enjoy.

Discovery Channel, Showcase Television, The Sports Network and its French-language equivalent, Le Reseau des Sports, have all filed a request with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to amend their licences.

‘They’re not asking for the world,’ says Diane Nault, acting senior communications director for the crtc, adding that 12 minutes of advertising each hour, averaged out over the week, is the allowable maximum for any service. She points out that the channels themselves requested only eight minutes when they first filed their licence applications.

Nault hints that it might only be a matter of paperwork to bring the channels up to par with their competitors, but adds that it depends on what consideration the advertising time was given when the licensing decision was reached.

It’s possible that asking for only eight minutes in the beginning was merely an oversight as the services may have mistakenly believed that eight was the maximum allowed for specialty channels.

But the fact that they were eligible to run four additional minutes of advertising likely became clear when the latest wave of specialty channels – some 23 services, four of which will go to air in September – were granted the right to show 12 minutes of advertising each hour.

‘In the beginning, it seemed to be a pattern that specialty channels were at eight minutes an hour,’ says David Kirkwood, vice-president of sales and marketing for MuchMusic and Bravo!

MuchMusic started with eight minutes, but moved to 12, while Bravo! still has only eight minutes of advertising an hour, according to Kirkwood.

‘At the time, we wanted to make an application (for Bravo!) for what we needed, without creating a surplus on the market.’

Kirkwood adds that there was a belief that asking for only eight minutes would improve a channel’s odds of getting a licence with the crtc.

He says that Bravo! will be keeping an eye on the proceedings and moving to do the same if the competition, particularly Showcase, gets the nod from the crtc.

Insiders contend that such a blunder might have proven costly for the specialty channels, which could have used the extra time for self-promotion, if not paid advertising.

Life Network is not involved in the bid because it had secured 12 minutes of advertising per hour right from the start, according to a company spokesperson.

The Women’s Television Network, which carries up to eight minutes of advertising per hour, is also not in on the application, but Elaine Ali, wtn president, says she is reviewing the situation.