EU news on television and radio advertising at a glance

These news items allow you to have an overview of the EU latest developments in the area of television and radio advertising. Most of these news are the subject of more detailed in-depth anaylisis which are reserved to egta members. Hopefully this section will help you grasp the relevance of EU debates for the advertising industry and the future of the broadcasting industry.

This "News" section is updated on a regular basis, depending on topicality: most recent news appear at the top of the page. These news memo are fed by the EU and regulatory affairs team of egta.

6 May 2008
Spain closer to be referred to the European Court of Justice for not complying with the advertising rules of the TVWF directive

On May 6 the European Commission sent Spain a reasoned opinion for failing to comply with the TV advertising restrictions foreseen by the Television Without Frontiers Directive. The Commission argues that the main TV channels in Spain, both public service and commercial, fail to restrict advertising and teleshopping to 12 minutes per clock hour. In the Commission’s view, Spain has defined the concept of spot advertising too narrowly and as a result various forms of advertising that are familiar features of its audiovisual landscape (micro-slots, telepromotions, advertorials, etc.) are falling outside of the directive’s 12 minute per hour limitation.

The infringement procedure against Spain started in July 2007. The Spanish authorities replied on 31 October 2007 but refused to change their interpretation of the EU directive to bring it in line with that of the Commission. It must be noted that advertising spots are not defined per se in the EU directive and that a previous ECJ ruling could support the Spanish interpretation. The said ECJ ruling recognizes the existence of longer forms of advertising that cannot be treated as advertising spots with regards to advertising limitations.

Beyond this dispute and following the general elections that took place in Spain last March, it is likely that the new Spanish government will start reviewing its audiovisual legislation in the month to come in order to transpose the new Audiovisual Media Service Directive. During this process, egta will be careful about this issue of the quantitative advertising limit with regard to longer forms of advertising that are different from advertising spots. New national laws should not me made in such a way as to restrict sales houses ability to broadcast alternative forms of advertising.

5 February 2008
France and the UK release their new strategies on the fight against obesity

France and the UK are the two EU Member States that have implemented the most visible restrictions to the advertising of food and drinks early 2007. Whereas France decided to impose the display of health warning messages on all TV and radio ads for processed foods and drinks, the UK chose a more drastic approach: a ban on all TV advertising for foods that are high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) in and around programmes whose large part of the audience is composed of minors.

Both countries recently unveiled their new strategies aimed at stepping up the fight against obesity with diverging approach to the advertising issue.

• On 23 January, the UK government declined NGOs calls for a watershed ban of HFSS food advertising before 9pm whose financial impact on the broadcasting sector would be tremendous. Instead, the UK government suggested that an in-depth assessment of the current restrictions be carried out, both in terms of its effectiveness to help curve and reverse the trend of childhood obesity and in terms of its financial impacts.
• On 4 February, the French Minister for Health & former Member of the European Parliament, Roselyne Bachelot, announced that findings from research demonstrated that the health messages on advertising have received high recall rates and have been even successful in prompting behavioural change. Despite these positive findings, the French Minister clearly announced her desire for commitments from the food industry to limit its advertising of HFSS foods and drinks to children. Discussions with all relevant stakeholders will be launched in March to step up voluntary commitments from the food industry.

For egta, these approaches to the fight against obesity place too much emphasis on the role of television advertising, whereas its link to levels of obesity has not yet been clearly demonstrated. Against this background, egta is always concerned by disproportionate measures that would fail in achieving any health policy objective while directly impacting media’s major sources of incomes.

16 January 2008
A Parliament resolution touches upon children and advertising

On 16 January, the European Parliament adopted a resolution ‘Towards an EU strategy on the rights of the child’ as a response to the strategy initially suggested by the European Commission. The Parliament globally supports the Commission’s strategy and decided to address the effects of media and advertising on children.

In the area of food advertising, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to bring forward proposals to regulate aggressive and misleading advertising. Although egta shares decision-makers’ concerns on the rise of childhood obesity across Europe, egta would like to remind that an EU piece of legislation is already in place on this issue and that it has recently been tightened, the Unfair Commercial Practices directive. As a matter of fact, this directive applies to all sectors and not only to the food and beverage industry.

In order to protect children from alcohol abuse, this resolution calls on stricter regulation on advertising for alcoholic beverages. In the case of television, one must be aware that, by way of the “Television without Frontiers” directive, it is already prohibited to specifically target minors in television advertising for alcoholic beverages. This same piece of legislation also sets many qualitative standards so that TV advertisements of alcoholic beverages are not depicted in an appealing way to minors. Broadcast advertising is already by far the most regulated of all marketing practices. For this reason, egta is doubtful that additional regulatory requirements on broadcast advertising is needed particularly at a time when children are increasingly exposed to other forms of commercial communications on new media.

12 December 2007
The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive enters into force

On 12 December, the Unfair Commercial Practice Directive has come into force across the European Union. This directive aims at protecting consumers from overly aggressive commercial practices and thus includes particular provisions on advertising.

Among other, the following provisions must be noted:

Thirteen member states have not yet implemented the new directive and are thus facing infringement proceedings. These are Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

29 November 2007
Audiovisual Media Services directive NOW officially adopted

The final step in the EU policy-making process towards a revised EU framework on television advertising was today completed, as the European Parliament voted to adopt the new Audiovisual Media Services directive (AMS).

5 years of preparation and 2 years of fierce political debate have gone into drafting the new text, involving the input of many stakeholders including egta, which stood firm to defend the interests of its members.

The new directive is the result of a difficult political compromise that reflects many of sales houses’ priorities. This new directive offers increased flexibility in advertising rules, secures the use of alternative formats such as split-screens and sponsorship and legalises product placement at last!

Each EU member state now has 2 years within which to review its national legislation according to the new directive and to apply the new framework.

To assist all members in understanding the new advertising rules, egta has put together a practical guide which will be sent to each company by the end of 2007. In addition to the recent Venice thematic day on regulation and sales, this guide will empower sales houses that want to influence the review of their national legislations and to make the most of the opportunities offered by the new EU directive.

Link to egta press release

24 October 2007
European Parliament calls for restrictions on car advertising as a way to curve CO2 emission levels

The European Parliament gathered in plenary meeting today voted on Mr. Chris Davies’ report for a Strategy to reduce CO2 emission from cars. Unfortunately, the European Parliament endorsed by a landslide majority calls for advertising restrictions or compulsory mentions such as:

egta believes these various suggestions could constitute serious threats to the freedom of advertising. New advertising requirements such as warning messages are not only superfluous and complex but they would seriously penalize and discriminate against certain media. For non-visual media such as radio, new information requirements would in particular involve longer and creative less advertising in which car manufacturers would no longer invest.

At this stage, these calls from the European Parliament are not legally binding but are quite worrying considering that the Commission is to present its new labeling directive early 2008 and then its CO2 emission directive. egta acknowledges that media and advertising have an important role to play in encouraging sustainable behaviors and consumption. For this reason egta will work with other advertising stakeholders and car manufacturers to improve self-regulation in these issues and will intensify its contacts with the European Commission to envisage more workable ways of improving consumer information on fuel consumption.
See egta press release

18 October 2007
European Court of Justice rules on Call-TV dispute between the ÖRF & the Austrian regulator

On 18 October, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) published its long-awaited ruling on the case regarding the classification as ‘teleshopping’ or ‘television advertising’ of a Call-TV programme broadcast by national public broadcaster ÖRF called ‘Quiz-Express’.

The ECJ was asked to provide guidance on whether the EU definitions of “teleshopping” or “advertising” could be understood to encompass programmes where viewers are offered the opportunity to participate in a game by means of dialling a premium rate telephone number.

egta took an interest in the case because of the potential impact its outcome could have on European Broadcasters when they design their programmes and envisage elements of interaction with viewers.

In its ruling, the Court explains that programmes should be assessed at national level and it thus provides guidelines to help determine the classification of certain Call-TV programmes. These guidelines aim at drawing a line between participation TV and entertainment on the one hand and practices of a more obvious commercial nature on the other.

In view of these guidelines, it will now be up to the Austrian Court or regulator to decide on the classification of the particular ÖRF programme “Quiz Express”. Beyond this particular case, European broadcasters and their sales houses may also decide to reflect on their programmes, which have recourse to premium-rate numbers.

17 July 2007
European Parliament Environment Committee votes on Alcohol Strategy

The Environment and Public Health Committee (ENVI) of the European Parliament today voted on the Alcohol Strategy report. As a reminder, this report follows an examination of the Commission's Communication on reducing alcohol-related harm in Europe - also known as the Alcohol Strategy - that was published last October.

egta takes note of the outcome of the vote and is pleased to note that the most worrying elements of rapporteur Alessandro Foglietta's draft report on advertising were rejected by the committee. Therefore, Mr. Foglietta's call for uniform EU rules on timing for the broadcasting of alcoholic beverage commercials does not feature in the report. Instead, the report now includes calls on the Commission and the Member States to draw up guidelines for the advertising of alcoholic beverages on television. In addition, the Commission is asked to encourage audiovisual media service providers to include rules on the scheduling of alcoholic beverage commercials in their codes of practice.

egta welcomes the approach taken by the ENVI committee as it indicates a trend that MEPs are increasingly turning to self-regulatory practices for solutions rather than further legislation. It now remains for all the Members of the European Parliament to adopt the report and potentially further amendments in a vote planned for early autumn, which will result in a non-binding Parliamentary resolution.

11 July 2007
Spain warned by Commission for failure to comply with TV ad rules

As a first warning, the Commission has sent Spain a letter of formal notice for failing to comply with European TV advertising rules set down by the ”Television Without Frontiers” directive.

• Firstly, the Commission is accusing Spain of having a too narrow interpretation of rules contained in Article 18(2) of the ”Television without Frontiers” directive arguing that certain Spanish TV channels are exceeding the limit of 12 minutes of advertising per hour.
• Secondly, the TV channels were found to be not respecting the rule that states that 20 minutes should elapse between successive advertising breaks (Article 11(4) of the directive).

Significantly, this warning comes just a few months before the expected adoption of a new Directive on Audiovisual Media Services by the end of 2007, which modifies if only slightly the rules described above. The Spanish government now has two months within which to respond to the Commission's concerns.

11 June 2007
European Commission launches EU Alcohol and Health Forum

On 7 June, more than 40 businesses and non-government organisations attended the launch of the EU's Alcohol and Health Forum at the European Commission buildings in Brussels. All were present as founding members to sign the Charter establishing the Forum along with EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.

This forum was set up following the Commission's publication of an EU Alcohol Strategy in October 2006, which outlined possible joint actions to help Member States reduce alcohol-related harm. As interested stakeholders that have this common platform's objectives at heart, members of the forum are asked to further their efforts that will help address the adverse effects of alcohol abuse. The Forum is to meet twice a year and to be chaired by the Commission's Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO).

On behalf of its 93 television and radio sales house members, egta was present to sign the Charter and intends to continue promoting responsibility in all commercial communications, giving particular focus on those for alcoholic beverages, within the forum.

egta press release following Launch of Alcohol and Health Forum

30 May 2007
The European Commission unveils its White paper on nutrition, overweight and obesity

The European Commission has just released today the awaited White Paper ”A strategy for Europe on Nutrition, Overweight & Obesity related health issues”. This policy document has been prepared by the Health department of the European Commission with the aim to suggest ”an integrated approach to contribute to reducing ill health due to poor nutrition, overweight and obesity”.

This White paper follows these past years' discussions on the fight against obesity both in Parliament and in the framework of the EU platform on Diet, physical activity and health. During these debates, a lot of discussions focused on the issue of advertising for HFSS food and potential advertising restrictions. Along these discussions, egta clearly voiced its opposition to over simplistic advertising restrictions and highlighted the positive role and value of advertising in our Societies.

Today's White paper is very encouraging because the Commission does not ”over-estimate” the impact of advertising on the rising prevalence of obesity and the Commission does not suggest that additional advertising restrictions are needed to address this public health concerns.

On the contrary the paper largely highlights the positive role of advertising self-regulation and encourages the development of effective self-regulation across Europe. egta is fully committed to this objective and will intensify its efforts to that end with other advertising stakeholders.


Link to the White paper from the European Commission

Link to egta reaction to the White paper

24 May 2007
The EU co-legislators agree on a final compromise agreement on the audiovisual media services directive

On May 9, the European Parliament "culture" committee gave its backing to a compromise agreement with the Council of the EU and the European Commission for the future audiovisual media services directive. This agreement was backed as well by the Council of Ministers of Culture, which met on May 24.

This agreements opens the way for a rapid adoption of the future directive, which is aimed to bring the EU framework into line with the tremendous economic and technological changes that occured in the sector these last 20 years. egta welcomes this agreement which substantiates a flexible approach to advertising featuring for example:

• streamlined rules on the insertion of advertising breaks,
  
• the securing of new advertising formats such as split screens,
  
• the legalization of product placement accompanied with adequate safeguards for wiewers,
  
• clear qualitative rules applying to commercial communications on all platforms so as to protect viewers and create a level playing field between different audiovisual media services,
  
• and unchanged limitation on the amount of advertising.
  

This agreement is nevertheless disappointing when it falls short of expectations (maintenance of restrictions on single-spot breaks) and when it is unclear (rules applicable to product placement and production props). Nevertheless, egta understands the need for a balanced compromise and believes this agreement represents a good legislation to help sales houses face the challenges of the 5 or 8 years to come.

egta calls on both the European Parliament and the Council to quickly endorse this text for a rapid adoption of the audiovisual media services directive.

Link to egta reaction to the Council political agreement on the AMS directive