Zing rapped by Ofcom for “too much advertising”

ZEE Network’s music and lifestyle channel, Zing has been rapped by Ofcom for excessive advertising during September last year.

As per Ofcom rules and regulations, “time devoted to television advertising and teleshopping spots on any channel in any one hour must not exceed 12 minutes”.

As part of Ofcom’s routine monitoring of broadcasters compliance, Ofcom observed that between 3rd and 14th September 2010, there were ten separate incidents where Zing appeared to have transmitted more advertising than the permitted allowance of 12 minutes in a single clock hour.

Ofcom noted that these advertising overruns ranged from 54 seconds more than the permitted 12 minutes in a single clock hour, to five minutes and 46 seconds over the permitted minutage.

ZEE Network said the problem had occurred as a result of confusion during the integration of a new bookings system with existing technology. ZEE stated that advertisements had been labeled incorrectly and, as a result, had been inserted manually into the transmission schedule in error after the finalised transmission schedule had been issued.

Ofcom said it was particularly concerned about the significant length of advertising overruns in these cases, and the high number of occasions on which these overruns occurred. In light of the assurances now given by ZEE Network about improvements it says it has made to its processes, we will continue to monitor Zing closely and may consider further regulatory action if this problem recurs.