As experts on Tuesday predicted tougher times for UK advertising spending, Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, offered some hope to the beleaguered sector.

While Zenith Optimedia, in its quarterly projections of advertising budgets, predicted a global slowdown as economic times worsened, Ofcom said it would consider relaxing rules governing how many advertisements can be shown in peak time.

In its report, Zenith said it expected spending on all media to be only 4.3 per cent higher for 2008 than in the previous 12 months.

That compares with a projection of 6.6 per cent growth in the company's previous report in June. Of that growth, all is in developing markets.

The clouds have gathered thickly over the UK, where overall spending is forecast to fall by 2.1 per cent, compared with a previous estimate of 2.4 per cent growth.

Television companies can expect to see 8.3 per cent less in their coffers, while newspaper revenues from advertising are predicted to drop 7.2 per cent and magazines 7 per cent. In June, Zenith said the same sectors would see falls of 4.4 per cent, 4.2 per cent and 4.3 per cent, respectively.

But Ofcom's announcement was better news for the UK's commercial public service broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

In its most recent directive on the subject, the European Commission said countries could relax restrictions on advertising "minutage" to permit a maximum of 12 minutes an hour.

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Ofcom currently allows the PSBs to run seven minutes of advertising an hour, on average across the day.

Announcing a consultation programme, Ofcom said one of the proposals on which it would seek the opinions of UK citizens and companies would see the channels able to broadcast up to 60 minutes of advertisements in total in the peak-time period of 6pm to 11pm, but only at weekends.

Currently, only 40 minutes in total is allowed in the five hours of peak time, but Ofcom said it might consider allowing the companies to cut down on peak-time advertising on nights when there were lower ratings while letting them increase the number of minutes on Saturday and Sunday nights.

The regulator said it believed ITV could benefit by as much as £40m ($70m) a year from the changes.

Ofcom said its research suggested that audiences were prepared to tolerate four advertising breaks in an hour if the programmes were light entertainment, but not if they were dramas.