According to documents acquired by the Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act, Channel 4 has consistently broken the 20 minutes of television to one ad break rule and on occasions has exceeded the 12 minutes of advertising in any one hour rule.
The papers, which reveal correspondence between Channel 4 and Ofcom, show that the media watchdog regularly failed to discipline the channel for its breaches.
As well as 'Lost' and 'Big Brother', T4 shows aimed at younger audiences including 'Futurama' and 'As If' have been called into disrepute for breaking broadcasting rules.
In a letter last May, Ofcom found four weeks in the previous month when the channel exceeded the hourly limit on ads.
The information will be unsettling for viewers who have complained to Ofcom about Channel 4 and the thousands of viewers who feel UK television is following US tactics of cramming as many ad breaks as possible into programming to make more money.
Last year, Channel 4 defended the frequency of 'Lost' ad breaks saying it had not broken any rules because Ofcom requires broadcasters to cut to ads at a point in the natural flow of the story.
"In the first episode, with the crash scene at the beginning and the monster scene at the end, we had to cut it so we did not break any rules on interrupting the natural flow of the story. We would have received far more complaints if we had cut it half way through a scene full of action," a spokeswoman said.
However in November last year, Ofcom found Channel 4 in breach of broadcast regulations over when it runs advertising breaks during 'Lost', after 23 viewers complained about the length of ads.
It acknowledged that there were complexities in complying with the 20-minute rule and that ads needed to be placed at natural break points.
But in its ruling, Ofcom said: "The country of origin of a series and the peculiarities of drama do not in themselves provide a valid reason for failing to comply with a key requirement of the scheduling rules on a regular basis across an entire series."
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