On the afternoon of November 25, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Advertising.

Giving opinions on advertising in newspapers and television, delegate Pham Van Hoa (Dong Thap delegation) mentioned that recently, there have been cases where people watching movies or other content suddenly interrupted and inserted advertisements when they were at an interesting part.

Considering this to be “extremely rude and disrespectful to customers”, the delegate suggested that it is necessary to regulate the appropriate time for advertising, “because it would be very strange to suddenly interrupt people while they are watching and jump into advertising”.

Delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh (National Assembly delegation of Lam Dong province) also said that it is necessary to balance the benefits when advertising on television. This delegate proposed to maintain the current regulation on advertising time on pay television at 5%. In the context of increasingly fierce competition in the media market, although increasing advertising time can bring greater profits to the stations, however, it also means that consumers will have to face more troubles and inconveniences.

According to the female delegate of Lam Dong delegation, increasing the advertising duration will reduce the viewer experience, even though they are watching on a TV channel that they themselves pay for.

"Being constantly interrupted by commercials will reduce viewers' concentration and interest in the program they are watching. This is especially true for continuous programs such as TV dramas and sports; or to have more time to air commercials, stations can cut or extend the duration of programs, leading to a reduction in content quality and loss of the inherent appeal of those programs," said Ms. Tu Anh .

Delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh said that viewers have paid to experience high-quality television services, and having to watch too many advertisements will make them feel annoyed and disrespected.

Regarding advertising on radio and television, delegate Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy (National Assembly delegation of Tay Ninh province) said that Article 22 of the current law is amended as follows: “Each entertainment program may not be interrupted for advertising more than four times, each time not exceeding 05 minutes. Each feature film program with a duration of less than 30 minutes may be interrupted for advertising twice, for every 15-minute increase in the program duration, an additional 01 advertising break is allowed; each interruption for advertising must not exceed 05 minutes”.

According to the delegate, a 60-minute entertainment program has 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of advertising; a 60-minute feature film program has 45 minutes of film and 15 minutes of advertising (advertising 3 times). Thus, advertising time accounts for about 1/4 of the entertainment program/film time.

With this provision, draft Article 22 of the Advertising Law has more clearly defined the scope of advertising duration for entertainment programs/movies; increased advertising time and number of advertisements, but has not really paid attention to the interests of TV viewers.

Delegates believe that, in order to balance the interests between television stations and television service users, it is necessary to adjust the regulations on the number of breaks and advertising time to match the length of the episodes. The report summarizing the implementation of the Advertising Law needs to survey the opinions of television viewers on increasing the length and number of advertisements.

Besides, it is necessary to regulate the advertising duration. An entertainment program or a movie should not spend more than 1/5 of the program's duration on advertising and should be interrupted no more than 2 times.