TV commercial breaks in Poland - are 10-12 minutes normal?

Nathans

31 May 2015 #1

The other day I've been watching some online streaming of a sports event in Poland. It was on Polsat (I believe) Polish TV channel. What struck me was the length of commercials - they were running over 10 MINUTES at a time! How is it possible? Two or three beer commercials on the same commercial break.

Are there any regulations regarding the maximum length of a TV commercial in Poland? Maybe they are but they don't apply to private (not public) TV channels? Still, what do Poles do when there's a 10-12 minute commercial running? : ) Do they just flip channels or they watch them till the end.

DominicB - | 2,707

31 May 2015 #2

Still, what do Poles do when there's a 10-12 minute commercial running?

When I would visit my students' house, they always had the TV on to watch sports. They knew when the shorter and longer commercial breaks would come, and they would call them "yellow" and "brown" breaks, for obvious reasons.

peter_olsztyn 6 | 1,096

1 Jun 2015 #3

what do Poles do when there's a 10-12 minute commercial running? : ) Do they just flip channels or they watch them till the end.

Twelve minutes isn't the top lenght :) We used to say "I saw commercial with short movie breaks yesterday" Solution is very simple. We gave them (Polsat. TVN) the finger. We do not watch tv at all. I bought in 2009 zillion inches thin tv which ended up as pc monitor. YT is much more interesting.

kpc21 1 | 763

1 Jun 2015 #4

Well, the lobby of the TV stations on the government is quite strong. There are some regulations, AFAIK there is a limitation on the total time of commercials per hour. For some time there are also some limits on the advertisments of programs (like an advertisments of the evening film in the break of the film displayed in the morning) - from then the TV stations put some of these advertisments in short, let's say 2-minute, "programs", which aren't even mentioned in TV guides, but they are officially treated as programs, so on paper everything is OK.

Beer commercials are allowed to be displayed, AFAIK, after 8 p.m.

And Polsat is known for exceptionally long commercial breaks - although TVN (the main competitor) isn't better. It isn't so bad in the public TV (TVP), although it's still bad if you take into account that they get extra financing from a TV/radio tax (in the country known as "TV/radio subscription", but it's, at least in theory, obligatory if you have a TV or radio set).