Communications Act 2003

322 Supplementary powers relating to advertising

(1) The regulatory regime for each of the following—

(a) every television programme service licensed by a Broadcasting Act licence,

(b) the public teletext service, and

(c) every other teletext service so licensed that consists in an additional television service or a digital additional television service,

includes a condition requiring the person providing the service to comply with every direction given to him by OFCOM with respect to any of the matters mentioned in subsection (2).

(2) Those matters are—

(a) the maximum amount of time to be given to advertisements in any hour or other period;

(b) the minimum interval which must elapse between any two periods given over to advertisements;

(c) the number of such periods to be allowed in any programme or in any hour or day; and

(d) the exclusion of advertisements from a specified part of a licensed service.

(3) Directions under this section—

(a) may be either general or specific;

(b) may be qualified or unqualified; and

(c) may make different provision for different parts of the day, different days of the week, different types of programmes or for other differing circumstances.

(4) In giving a direction under this section, OFCOM must take account of such of the international obligations of the United Kingdom as the Secretary of State may notify to them for the purposes of this section.