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Programming: Commercials

Number of commercials classified as Australian and foreign, 1998–2008

Next update July 2010

The total number of new and revised television commercials, whether Australian or foreign, cleared by CAD¹ increased yearly between 1998 and 2005. In 2006, it fell for the first time following two consecutive decreases in the number of Australian commercials. Since then, there has been significant growth in the number of Australian commercials, up by 68 per cent. This rise is even more pronounced when considering only new Australian advertisements, which have almost tripled in number since 2006. Both Australian figures and the overall totals are now at their highest point on record.

The proportion of foreign commercials has fallen over the same two-year period and, in the case of new commercials, is now at an all-time low.

	Number of new and revised commercials²
	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Aust.	36,609	38,365	38,886	41,498	46,846	47,948	52,500	51,924	50,488	58,116	84,924
Foreign	1,693	1,459	1,687	1,276	1,356	1,592	1,809	2,827	3,048	3,016	3,052
Exempt³	5,104	4,672	5,085	4,699	5,201	5,748	5,935	5,644	5,352	5,661	5,036
Total	43,406	44,496	45,658	47,546	53,403	55,288	60,244	60,395	58,888	66,793	93,012
Foreign as per cent of total	3.9%	3.3%	3.7%	2.7%	2.5%	2.9%	3.0%	4.7%	5.1%	4.5%	3.3%

	Number of new commercials
	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Aust.	12,578	12,538	13,579	13,521	14,186	14,942	14,273	13,521	17,841	37,112
Foreign	600	675	581	656	668	774	985	1,075	1,189	1,224
Total	13,238	13,213	14,160	14,177	14,854	15,716	15,258	14,596	19,030	38,336
Foreign as per cent of total	5.0%	5.1%	4.1%	4.6%	4.5%	4.9%	6.5%	7.4%	6.2%	3.2%

Source: Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Notes:
1. Most television commercials are classified as Australian or foreign by Commercials Advice Pty Limited, a company that is wholly owned by Free TV Australia. Formerly the Commercial Acceptance Division of the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations (FACTS), it is still commonly known as CAD. CAD provides classification and information services to advertisers, agencies and production houses in relation to television commercials. This information assists the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), formerly the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), in monitoring the Australian content of advertising on television. Content is regulated under the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice, developed by Free TV Australia and registered with the ACMA.

The regulations – setting limits of 80 per cent Australian, 20 per cent foreign content – are based on the amount of time television commercials are shown, whereas figures here are for the number of commercials classified. While foreign commercials make up 3–4 per cent of the total number of classified commercials, they take up an average of 12.5 per cent of advertising time. The Productivity Commission Report into Broadcasting, released in 2000, cited possible reasons for this, such as foreign commercials are longer than local ones or they are shown more often.

2. The figures include both new and revised commercials (those with minor changes), as well as commercials resubmitted because they were over two years old.

3. Advertisements for imported cinema films, videos, recordings, live appearances by overseas entertainers and community service announcements are exempt from the standard.

Programming: Regulation

Production industry:: TV commercial production for information about commercials production in Australia.