The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has issued new sponsorship and advertising guidelines, which in essence, will give media houses a hard time trying to gather resources for the smooth running of their media houses.
The guidelines, which came into force at the beginning of the month, October 1, put a tight leash on what can be and what can’t be advertised or sponsored on a television or radio station.
According to the guidelines, a radio or television station is only allowed 10 minutes of advertisement in a block hour. To justify the move, the chief regulators pointed out that limiting ads to 10mins per hour speaks to restructuring broadcasting to ensure that both commercial interests are met while public interest content is not compromised.
The rationale to restrict the duration, frequency & scheduling of advertisements is to protect the viewer from interruption of public interest programming by too many advertisements. This ensures advertisements do not excessively encroach on the time available for programming.
The new guideline from UCC received a mixed reaction from the public including people from media fraternity and other related industries. In response to the guideline by UCC, the media houses may be forced to raise advertising costs per minute to cover cost hence kicking away small scale advertisers.
“Holding a license to broadcast is not a right. It is a privilege to Inform, Educate & Entertain Ugandans.” The document says.
News items such as flashes, bulletin headlines, top stories, special and breaking news must not be sponsored. Other must-not-be sponsored items include; parliamentary programs; the opening of parliament, highlights from parliament, select committee hearings, a special committee of parliament, and commissions of inquiry.
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Others are election-related campaign reports and polling night results, ministerial speeches, press conferences and speeches by public officials. UCC however, allows the sponsorship of weather broadcasts, financial broadcasts or traffic, gambling content and lottery related campaigns.
In case a program is sponsored, a sponsor’s name may be incorporated into the title of the program provided it is an entertainment variety or sports program.
Advertisements must not encourage indiscriminate or excessive use of a weight-control or slimming product or service. There are so many new rules and regulations in the new guidelines and you can capture the full document here and tell us what you think about the new rules. Will it help protect consumers the way the UCC is putting it? Or it’s just recipe to fail the media houses? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section.
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