CRTC TO REVIEW AD RULE
By Adnews Staff
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced last week that it will review the issue of simultaneous substitution of advertising. The move is being made because with new distribution technologies, the current system won't be workable. Simultaneous substitution rules require that when Canadian and U.S. TV channels air the same program at the same time, advertising carried on the Canadian channel must also be run on the U.S. channel in Canada. This increases viewing figures for advertisers' commercials, which also increases advertising rates stations charge. Simultaneous substitution was put into place to protect Canadian broadcasters that bought Canadian rights for U.S. shows and ended up competing for viewers when U.S. stations were carried on Canadian cable systems. Possible approaches to a new form of advance substitution include program deletion, non-simultaneous substitution, second local and channel simulcast and strip substitution.