European Commission proposal to amend the Television Without Frontiers Directive

The European Commission published its proposals to amend the Television Without Frontiers Directive in December, 2005. The first Television Without Frontiers Directive dated from 1989 and was amended in 1997.

The provisions of the existing Directive include the following:

• “Member states shall ensure where practicable, and by appropriate means, that broadcasters reserve for European works, within the meaning of Article 6, a majority proportion of their transmission time, excluding the time appointed to news, sports events, games, advertising and teletext services”.
• “Member states shall ensure, where practicable and by appropriate means, that broadcasters reserve at least 10% of their transmission time, excluding the time appointed to news, sports events, games, advertising, and teletext services, or alternately, at the discretion of the member state, at least 10%of their programming budget , for European works created by producers who are independent of broadcasters”.
• Advertising, sponsorship and teleshopping rules (rules on when advertising may be inserted and the amount of advertising, together with rules controlling the nature of advertising, including a ban on tobacco advertising and controls on alcohol advertising.
• Designation of certain events as events of major importance to society that should be available on free television.
• Protection of minors.
• Right of reply.

The principal reason for the Commission’s proposal to amend the Directive is to address the fact that advances in technology and the manner in which the audiovisual sector has developed has resulted in a regulatory environment where similar audiovisual services are not subject to similar regulation. Certain services that are the same in nature as “traditional television services” are available on non-traditional broadcasting networks and are not subject to broadcasting regulation.

The new Audiovisual Media Services Directive seeks to address the significant technological and market developments of recent years while ensuring a competitive playing field between service providers. It seeks to achieve this by establishing common minimum rules for all audiovisual media services irrespective of the transmission platform used in their delivery.

Having reached political agreement at Council in May, 2007, the new Directive was adopted by Parliament in November, 2007. The new Audiovisual Media Services Directive was published in the Official Journal (OJ) in December, 2007 and will have to be transposed by member states within two years.

link to Commission website.

link to BCI website.