The makers of chocolate bars have a choice of two options when responding to inflationary pressures.
They can increase the retail price of their product or they can reduce the size of the bar. In both cases, the change is made with a minimum of publicity, and if the second option is adopted, it will be hoped that most customers will not notice. In many cases, efforts are made to disguise the reduction in size.

This is especially the case with Easter eggs, where the boxes are invariably much larger than the eggs. This trend in confectionary may have some marginal advantage in combatting obesity, but the same trend in radio and television broadcasting cannot be justified on health grounds.

As in all other industries, the costs in broadcasting continue to rise and the alternative to raising the price to the consumer is to reduce the value content in programmes. In the case of the BBC, which is funded by a licence fee charged to all radio and TV owners in the UK, raising the fee is viewed as an increase in national taxation. The BBC was for years the envy of commercial broadcasting because it appeared to be generously funded, but for various reasons, this is no longer the case, and Auntie has followed the commercial broadcasters in adopting the tactics of the chocolate makers.

Throughout most of its history, the BBC has had the enormous advantage of not having to fill its listening and viewing time with advertisements. To avoid these interludes delaying and interrupting enjoyment, many people watched only the BBC. This was especially true of those whose main interest was in keeping up with the news and watching or listening to informative documentary programmes.

But in recent years, the BBC has found various ways of padding out the intervals between programmes and now its only advantage is that its programmes, once started, are free from interruption.
For the BBC, the empty space in its Easter egg box is mostly filled with self-advertising. Whereas in the past, the public was trusted to select their preferred viewing/listening by reference to published programme guides in newspapers and magazines, now they are bombarded with advertisements, not only for today's entertainment but often for programmes that are days or weeks ahead.

And these advanced notices are repeated ad nauseam, filling as much advanced time as the programme is destined to fill when eventually broadcast.
Not only self-advertising is used for time filling.