How much advertising on TV is there in other countries besides the U.S.?

In the U.S. there is 15-16 minutes of commercials each hour. I was wondering if it was the same for other countries? What is it like in countries like Italy, Germany, Portugal, Israel, etc.? And are sitcoms in a half-hour slot like they are in the U.S.? In the U.S. why are sitcoms only a half-hour, I've always thought that was about 10 minutes too short.

In Italy commericals are the same in quantity (on free to air TV), perhaps there are different restrictions of other kind, compared to the US (the overall world of television in USA and in Europe are very different).

If you mean domestic sit-com (Italian made), they run 20 to 30 minutes in Italy as well.

in new zealand at prime time (say 8 till 10pm) we have about 3 minutes of ads between 10 minute show slots. so in a half hour show there would be two interruptions as well as one at the start and one at the end.

I know in Japan there are a lot of them and the sitcoms that come from America are pretty funny in Japanese too!

In England they show commercials between shows, not during --- got to love that uninterupted viewing time. There are so many shows that cross the pond both ways, inevitably the same run-time in the end.