New television guidelines from the CRTC are a farce that will result in increased advertising clutter on Canadian airwaves, according to the Association of Canadian Advertisers.

Bob Reaume, vice president of media and research for the ACA, says the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is not doing advertisers any favours by loosening the restrictions on the volume of advertising that can go to air. All that will result, he says, is the continued dilution of advertisers’ messages.

‘We’ve virtually adopted the U.S. system [of no guidelines whatsoever], but we have done it dishonestly because the CRTC has created loophole upon loophole,’ he says.

Currently, broadcasters are limited to 12 minutes of commercial time per hour. However, in a new CRTC policy framework released earlier this month, the types of commercials exempted from that rule have been broadened.

Exemptions have been extended to ‘all promotions of Canadian feature films and other Canadian programs.’ There are also no limits on how many promotional messages can be aired by broadcasters themselves.

Reaume says the new exemptions are so broad they could potentially include not only ads for Canadian television and feature films, but also for theatre productions, books, magazines, newspapers, and rock concerts.

Canadian airwaves are already cluttered with too much advertising, he says, as broadcasters routinely flout the 12-minute limit. A study done last year by the ACA showed that more than 81% of broadcasters monitored carried more than 12 minutes of commercials per programming hour.

The changes to the CRTC guidelines will likely boost that figure to more than 95%, he says. ‘The average, which now almost approaches 15 minutes per hour, will probably go up to 16 minutes,’ says Reaume.

Agencies and advertisers will have to closely monitor the level of advertising clutter on the airwaves since broadcasters seem unwilling or unable to police themselves, says Janet Callaghan, vice-president, corporate media director for Toronto-based Media Buying Services and spokeswoman at the CRTC hearings for the Canadian Media Directors Council.

‘I think we’re at a stage now where broadcasters have to demonstrate the attentiveness of their viewers,’ she says.

If advertising tracking indicates that the level of viewer attentiveness is diminished by too many commercial interruptions, she says, media directors will demand that broadcasters adjust their rates.

Michael Buzzell, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, defends the new, looser restrictions, saying Canadian broadcasters have to air more commercials to fill time left vacant by shrinking U.S. programs, he says.

‘U.S. programs are getting shorter, on average 20 minutes per half hour, so broadcasters have 20, 22 and sometimes 24 minutes an hour to fill,’ Buzzell says. ‘They fill the two minutes they need to fill by promoting Canadian programming.’

Buzzell says advertisers needn’t worry – that broadcasters will eventually find a natural, acceptable level of advertising time.