The Government is considering scrapping the Sunday morning and public holiday bans on television and radio advertising.

Broadcasting Minister Amy Adams said she wanted to make the rules governing traditional and new media more consistent.

The Government is also canvassing changes to election programming rules and the way internet television programmes are classified.

Television stations are prevented by the Broadcasting Act from carrying advertisements between 6am and noon on Sunday, and on Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Anzac Day morning, while online media are not.

The public holiday advertising bans also apply to radio stations.

A discussion paper on content regulation released by Adams said the bans could be scrapped entirely, or only during major sporting events.

If changes were made, time could be set aside in early morning television schedules to protect "minority interest programming", the paper suggested.

Green Party broadcasting spokesman Gareth Hughes opposed lifting the ad bans, "unless we have a proper commercial-free public broadcasting option".

"It is important there is a little bit of peace and quiet in our hectic modern world," he said.

But Adams questioned whether the rules governing traditional and new media were still "fit for purpose".

The Government would consider whether rules should apply in a "technology neutral way", she said.

Television New Zealand, which would be one of the broadcasters to gain from a lifting of advertising restrictions, posted a $10 million jump in its annual profit on Thursday.

READ MORE: TVNZ's profit up by $10m

But Adams said the consideration being given to lifting the ad-ban had nothing to do with supporting the state-owned broadcaster.

"It is increasingly indefensible to distinguish whether something is on TV, radio or the internet; whether it's tax treatment, advertising or election programming, I am saying it is time we had a consistent approach," she said.

Up for debate are whether rules governing election campaigning on radio and television are still "relevant", given developments with social media, and how to classify programmes shown on on-demand internet television services.

Internet television providers could be covered by the Broadcasting Act in the same way as traditional broadcasters, or allowed to "self-regulate".

Other options include requiring them to submit all their programming to the Film and Video Labelling Body for classification. Alternatively, all media, including newspapers, could be brought under a single regime through a new "Media Content Standards Act".

Kym Niblock, chief executive of Spark internet television service Lightbox, said regulation had not kept up with changes in the way people were accessing and consuming media content.

"Our experience with setting up Lightbox highlights that responsible content providers are best placed to provide proper content classifications.

"Trying to retrofit old broadcasting-era models won't work in the digital environment because that would just load cost onto online providers who are competing with the likes of YouTube, which doesn't go through any classification processes," she said.

The discussion documents suggest bringing broadcasting regulation under the framework of the Telecommunications Act, saying the distinction between telecommunications and broadcasting has become "increasingly arbitrary".