Ofcom outlined the decision back in January and approved it on a provisional status in March that will remove the rule that forces networks to sell ad minutes after fears that PSB broadcasters would hold slots in an effort to raise the prices.

PSBs can run about seven minutes of ads every hour and now they could change the price they charge advertisers for that time period by drastically reducing how many ads they show.

The impact of the strategy however has been reduced dramatically by the introduction of digital television channels.

Channel 4 and Channel Five could still reap the benefits of the ruling by millions of pounds every year as they gain more control over the way they choose to sell television ads.

ITV on the other hand will have less room to do the same as contract rights renewal procedures will keep their advertising rates set to their current levels working against the broadcaster if they tried to reduce the amount of advertising airtime they allowed.

In addition to the new regulation removal, Ofcom also announced that conditional selling which includes selling airtime from several different channels at once in a package will also be allowed for the first time.

Most sources from media agencies do not believe that the regulation changes will cause any market abuse problems because television ad sales already face pressure from CRR incentives and conditional sales.  Ofcom will continue to review the evolving market to assess if the change in regulation has had a negative or positive effect.

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New minister for media and arts, Ed Vaizey, stated in his first interview that the BBC will be treated in a very firm fashion by the coalition government, but it will still be fair, and went as far as to say that BBC 6 Music, which was to be cancelled should be saved.

Last year, the Conservatives were not able to win the vote in parliament to freeze the licensing fee, but now that they have taken office they have not made plans to block a three pound annual increase of the fee coming up in April of 2011 and 2012.

Vaizey stated they only reason they attempted to freeze it last year was because the inflation rate was flat.

Outside of their stance on freezing the license fee, the Tories have also lightened up when it comes to forcing the media group to publish the salaries of its top celebrities.  Vaizey addressed this fact, as well stating that the Tories are still considering whether this should be forced or not.

He did state however that there should be more transparency when it comes to the salaries of top BBC managers.  In fact, the Government wants any top person from a publicly funded organization to be allotted a salary that is no more than 20 times the amount that the same company’s lowest paid employee earns.

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They also increased their overall average viewing time to four hours and 18 minutes a day, which totals up to an 8% increase during the first quarter of 2010 according to the newest Thinkbox TV marketing report.  The report details the results of the Broadcasters’ Audience Research figures.

Last year, during the first quarter the report showed an average viewing time of four minutes shy of four hours and that people watched about 45 ads per day.  Over the last five years people are watching 22% more ads every day.

In total, most British viewers average about 30 hours of television every week, which is an increase of about two and a half hours over last year.

There are a few reasons for the growth in viewing time this year, which include the introduction of a new measurement system that is thought to offer more accurate viewing measurements since it accounts for on demand viewing and multiple television sets in one home.

Additional factors that may have resulted in the increase in viewing include the spread of production from digital channels, the economic recession forcing people to remain at home, and the fact that the winter was much colder than previous winters.

Also reported by Thinkbox was the fact that viewing growth seems to have increased equally among all age groups.  The group also predicts that as digital TV enters more homes and slowly is closing the gap between the 90% of homes that have it and a future where 100% of homes have access to digital channels television viewing will continue to increase.

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