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 reports are the subject of more detailed in-depth anaylses that are reserved for 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 memos are fed by the public and regulatory affairs team at egta.

1 July 2010
The media and advertising industry advocates the value of advertising towards European decision makers      

On 30 June 2010, egta, together with other media and advertising associations, organised a joint event on the future of media hosted by MEP Mary Honeyball (UK, S&D) at the European Parliament. Given the current challenging environment for the content industry, the event aimed to emphasise that advertising remains crucial for the preservation of a diverse, pluralistic media landscape and to ensure sustainable revenue sources for high-quality programming. Moreover, the industry also sought to promote self regulation towards European decision makers as the best way to ensure responsible advertising and highlighted the damage disproportionate regulation causes to the revenues of the media and creative sectors.

Present at the event as keynote speaker, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the Commission and European Digital Agenda Commissioner, stressed the importance of media plurality and of advertising, as she believes sustainable sources of revenue are crucial for maintaining media plurality (the full text of the speech is available on www.media-lounge.eu). She also emphasised the potential opportunities for the advertising industry enclosed in the new European directive covering the audiovisual sector (AVMS) that can undoubtedly contribute to developing revenues and fostering creativity. Moreover, she called on the industry to consider Video on Demand platforms in light of their more flexible regulatory regime.
 
Following a similar line and insisting on the importance of advertising in enabling media to function properly, MEP Mary Honeyball stated that the Internet was a key sector to boost traditional media creativity. Among the other topics touched on by the invited MEPs, copyright took prominence. Both French MEP Marielle Gallo (EPP) and Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake (ALDE) stressed the need for a European copyright framework to protect intellectual property rights in order to ensure ongoing sources of revenues to creators and to foster creativity in the media sector.

20 May 2010
World Health Organisation recommends governments worldwide to reduce the impact of marketing for food targeting children      

At its General Assembly of 20 May, 2010, the World Health Organisation, the United Nation agency that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health, adopted recommendations on food marketing to children, alongside an additional resolution tabled by Norway. This initiative was justified on the basis of a Resolution of May 2007 (global strategy on prevention of non-communicable diseases), through which World Health Organisation member States gave to the agency the mandate, among others, to develop a set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children in order to reduce the impact of foods high in fat, sugar and salt. The adoption followed a consultation process of several months’ duration within the agency’s 193 member States and the endorsement by the Executive Board in January 2010.

Not legally binding, the recommendations aim to provide World Health Organisation member States with guidelines for the development of national policy actions on food marketing to children. Governments are presented a menu of options which envisages both regulatory and self-regulatory approaches and no option is recommended over another. However, the document builds upon the rationale that food marketing influences children's preferences, purchase requests and consumption patterns and it is, consequently, associated with childhood obesity. The adoption of the recommendations is therefore likely to increase the focus on the issue by a number of national governments worldwide.

Concerns are also arising from the recommended objective, which is to reduce the impact on children from the marketing of high fat, salt and sugar foods both in a qualitative and quantitative ways, as a combination of “exposure” and “power” is seen to determine the effectiveness of marketing (with exposure dealing with reach, frequency and media impact of marketing communications and power referring to the content, design and creative execution of the message). Although the document does not prescribe any definition, it is also dangerous in the way it details the policy specifications that governments need to define, which include the age of a child, the communication channels and the kind of food considered to be high in fat, sugar and salt. On a positive note, multi-stakeholder platforms are clearly encouraged by the recommendations, even though governments are considered to have the lead role in setting policies.

TV advertising being the most visible part of the marketing of products, there is a real danger that the UN agency initiative will translate into further restrictions taken by national governments on TV advertising for food targeting children. In light of the interests at stake (food advertising consists of, on average, 20% of TV advertising spend in Europe), egta has increased its efforts toward securing that the success it achieved for the time being in avoiding EU-wide regulatory restrictions to advertising for food directed at children are not undermined by actions taken by national governments worldwide.

19 May 2010
European Parliament adopts Energy Labelling directive and introduces labelling requirements in advertising for household appliances      

Although the recent reshuffle of the Commission delayed the debate on the imposition of information requirements on petrol consumption and CO2 emissions in TV and radio car advertising (a proposal is to be issued by the Commission before the end of 2010), over the past year some MEPs have placed the increasing public concern for environmental issues at the heart of their activities and pushed forward other environmental related initiatives with an effect on advertising.

In particular, on 19 May, 2010, the European Parliament plenary approved at second reading the directive on the indication by labelling and standard product information of the consumption of energy and other resources by energy-related products. The goal of the recast directive is to extend the scope of the current energy labelling directive, restricted to household appliances, to all energy-related products including the household, commercial and industrial sectors and some non energy using products.

According to the directive, as adopted on 19 May, any advertisement on all media that mention the energy consumption or price of a specific model of household appliance will have to show the product's energy class. The labelling will still be based on the current A-G scale, but now there will be three additional classes (A+, A++, and A+++). Similar provisions will apply to any technical promotional literature such as manuals and manufacturers' brochures, whether printed or available on the Internet. Once published in the EU Official Journal, Member States will have one year to transpose the directive in their national laws.

Beside the particular case of household appliances, which do not represent major ad spend for broadcast media, it is clear that compulsory labelling and information requirements have a substantial impact on TV and radio advertising revenues and that there are indeed more appropriate and efficient communication channels available to reach consumers with the specific information they need at the time of making their purchase decision. Because of its short length and need for highly creative content, TV and radio advertising is not well suited to convey detailed technical information to consumers, whether it concerns the CO2 emissions of particular models of cars, the energy consumption of household appliances, the energy performance of buildings, etc. As a non-visual medium, radio is even more limited in this regard. Information requirements result in long oral mentions at the end of spots, which damage their creative appeal and encourage advertisers to seek alternatives. It is egta’s view that, as a source of information to consumers, advertising may play a role. However, before any labelling requirement is imposed, its potential impacts and the specificities of each medium need to be taken into account.

9 February 2010
European Parliament approves new European Commission      

On 9 February 2010, the European Parliament elected the new European Commission. Mr Barroso and his new team of 26 commissioners (one Commissioner from each EU member state) have been approved by a vast majority of the European Parliament (488 votes in favour, 137 against and 72 abstentions) with a single vote on the whole College. As expected, the new Commission, which will be in office from 10 February until 31 October 2014, was supported by the centre-right European People's Party and the Liberal group of the European Parliament, and rejected by far left groups and extreme rights groups only. More interestingly, following Barroso’s promise to undertake social impact assessments for legislative proposals, the Socialists finally decided to give their backing for the Commission, stating that Europe is made on permanent compromise. Before the vote on the Commission, the European Parliament adopted with a vast majority the revised resolution on a new cooperation agreement between the two institutions, which opens the door to the European Parliament forcing individual Commissioners to resign, a power not granted to them in EU law.

In terms of expected consequences for the advertising industry of the new composition of the Barroso second College, time will tell whether Neelie Kroes (The Netherlands, Liberal), the new Commissioner for Digital Agenda, will revert to her current  reputation as a tough enforcer of rules on state aid and as a champion of consumer rights. Viviane Reding (Luxembourg, centre-right), the former Commissioner for Media, now responsible for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, will be in charge of marketing law and consumer contract (previously run by DG SANCO) and, thus, will still play a role in the upcoming revision of the legislation on data protection and privacy, as well as on the regulation on behavioural advertising. Among other portfolios, Health and Consumer Policies, which are now re-united under the leadership of the Maltese John Dalli, remain very relevant for egta and its members in view of the on-going debate on food and alcohol advertising. At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Dalli promised a reassessment of the draft directive on information to patients signaling that “there might be a harder demarcation between industry and advertising”.

The creation of a new portfolio dedicated to Climate Action, which goes to the previous Danish minister for climate change and energy, the conservative Connie Hedegaard, is a clear signal that climate change will still be a big priority for the Commission across all sectors. An expected impact on advertising is the unfreezing of the discussions on the revision of the CO2 labeling directive with the related issue concerning information requirements on CO2 emissions in car advertising.

The new Barroso team is to be sworn into office at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on 10 February.

1 December 2009
The European Council presents its opinion on the issue of young people’s exposure to alcohol advertising      

On 1 December, EU Health ministers adopted its conclusions on alcohol and health. The adoption of the paper represents the final stage of a debate that was initiated by the Swedish presidency within the Working Party on Health, following the outcomes of the experts’ conference on Health and Alcohol organised at the end of September in cooperation with the European Commission.
Among other issues, the Council’s paper covers the protection of young people from exposure to alcohol marketing. Taking the opinion of the EU Alcohol Forum science group, that alcohol marketing is one of the factors that increases the likelihood that young people will consume alcoholic beverages, it invites member states and the Commission to improve the implementation of the current regulatory framework and, if appropriate, to consider further steps to protect children and adolescents from alcohol marketing exposure. In addition, an almost exclusive focus on regulatory measures seems to deny the effectiveness of self‐regulation mechanisms in decreasing the impact of alcohol related harms. Member states are invited to report to the Commission on developments by 2011. On the basis of these developments, and of the work undertaken by the Commission itself, the Commission will then report to the Council in 2012.

Although the conclusions do not have any legislative power, they could present a potential threat to sales houses’ interests at the national level, as they still represent the opinion of EU member states on alcohol policy and further increase the pressure coming from the World Health Organization. The Council’s document it is also likely to play an important role in the further work of the EU Alcohol and Health Forum (the platform created in 2007 by the Commission to allow stakeholders to undertake voluntary initiatives and avoid further binding restrictions).

In view of the interests at stake (alcohol TV advertising in Europe represent around 5 % of total TV advertising investments), egta is putting great efforts into increasing the awareness on the fact that broadcast alcohol advertising is already submitted to a wide range of regulatory limitations (TV advertising is the most restricted form of marketing communication when it comes to alcoholic beverages), and TV and radio sales houses already comply with different self-regulatory standards and industry codes of conduct that complement each other at national level to ensure the highest level of responsibility. To substantiate this message, in April 2009 egta launched a compendium of safeguards applied to TV advertising across the EU (a full version of egta’s compendium is available for download at www.egta.com) and has recently committed to the Alcohol Forum to develop a tailored website on responsible commercial communication for alcoholic beverages. egta’s upcoming website will be launched in December 2010 and will provide broadcast advertising professionals with a facilitated access to a comprehensive set of resources as well as with an effective platform for the exchange of best practices around responsible commercial communication for alcoholic beverages.

7 September 2009
New agreement on food advertising to children signed in Spain

On 7 September, a new agreement on food advertising geared toward children has been co-signed by the Spanish government, the food industry and the majority of Spanish broadcasters. The agreement aims at ensuring that all broadcast food and beverage advertising targeting children will comply with the self-regulatory code on food advertising toward children in place in Spain (PAOS Code).

Signed by the presidents of both the federation of Regional Radio and Television channels (FORTA) and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters (UTECA), the agreement confirms the broadcasters’ commitment to comply with the provisions established by the self-regulatory code on food and beverage advertising endorsed in 2005 by the Ministry of Health. The code has been signed by a total of 36 food companies, which represent 94.29% of the investments on food and drinks advertising toward children. However, following the adoption of the agreement, PAOS’ rules will apply to all advertisers regardless of their involvement in the agreement.

The obesity debate is high on the Spanish public agenda and raises calls for restrictions on advertising for food high in fat, sugar or salt directed at minors. According to the Minister of Health, Mrs Trinidad Jiménez, 18.6 % of children between 2 and 17 years old in Spain suffer from weight problems and 8.9% are obese. To fight against “one of the highest percentages of children’s obesity across Europe” the Spanish government has undertaken several initiatives. The enforcement of advertising self-regulation mechanisms is one of them. Since the adoption of the PAOS code, widely recognised as a best practice model, the Spanish self-regulatory organisation has checked over 1.331 food ads. Among these, 320 have been broadcast after being modified and 68 were rejected for non compliance with the code.

The recently adopted European Audiovisual Media Service directive calls on member states to encourage media service providers to develop codes of conduct regarding inappropriate audiovisual commercial communications, accompanying or included in children’s programmes, of food and beverage. While the AVMS directive is in the process of being implemented by national regulators, media service providers have already reacted to such a call. In particular, new codes of conduct have been established in Denmark, Germany and France (see egta article on the French Obesity Charter of 18 February 2009) and the application of existing codes has been strengthened in many other countries.

Food advertising and the developments achieved by media service providers to respond to the EU call will be the topic of an upcoming egta conference on food advertising planned to be held in Brussels next January 2010. On the occasion of the conference, egta will promote its interpretative guidelines on the ICC Framework on Food and Beverage marketing advertising, i.e. the most commonly used self-regulatory code on food and beverage advertising across Europe. For further information please see the egta press release of 29 September 2008, “egta responds to the European Parliament’s call on food advertising self-regulation and launches two new initiatives”.

28 July 2009
New Spanish media law bans advertising on public TV and radio

The proposal tabled by the Spanish government on May 8th 2009 aimed at reforming the financing of the Spanish Public Radio and Television Corporation (RTVE), was today adopted by the Senate to enter into force in September 2009. The law, which will be published in the official journal in the month to come, eliminates advertising from Spanish public television and radio from January 1st 2010, following similar legislation adopted in France. According to the new financing model,  the RTVE budget for 2010 will be limited to 1.2 million Euros. In addition to the aid coming from the government, which will make up 45% of the budget of the corporation (around 500 million Euros), telecom operators, private broadcasters and pay TV operators will contribute to the financing of the public broadcaster with 0.9%, 3% and 1.5% of their revenues respectively. Furthermore, RTVE will profit from a tax which is already applicable to media operators that are exploiting the radio frequencies spectrum, such as broadcasters and telecom operators.

According to the reform, which has been the result of a negotiation between the government and commercial broadcasters, RTVE will strengthen its public service character. In particular, news and current affairs programmes, as well as other programmes giving visibility to political parties and social organisations, will be privileged in spite of a more “competitive” content offer. Among the other provisions set up by the new law, the public broadcaster will be permitted to air up to 80 premieres a year produced by international majors and dedicate up to the 10% of its budget to the acquisition of sports events (excluding the Olympic Games which are considered to be of major national interest).

A debate is on-going on whether the advertising ban should be extended onto local and regional TV channels and radios stations.

March 2009
The transposition of the new Audiovisual Media Service directive speeds up across Europe

The new Audiovisual Media Service directive came into force on 19 December 2007 with the purpose, among others, to provide the audiovisual industry with more flexible advertising rules (e.g. insertion of ad breaks and quantitative limits) and to allow new forms of advertising, such as split screen and product placement. More than one year later only few member States have adapted their national advertising rules to the modernised European framework. Nevertheless the process seems to have recently speeded up in most European countries in view of the short timeline (the directive has to be transposed by the member States by December 2009).

The countries that so far have comprehensively implemented the new audiovisual media rules (notably Romania, Portugal, France and Belgium North) have made use of most of the liberalization options offered by the Directive, including product placement. In the case of Belgium North the government took the occasion of the transposition of the European directive into national law to further clarify the advertising provisions settled down by the directive and thus to offer a more secure legal framework for television sales houses. In France the establishment of more flexible advertising rules for private broadcasters has been accompanied by the application of an ad hoc provision to the public service broadcaster, which rule out advertising after 8pm from 5 January 2009 (advertising will be totally prohibited on France Télévision by December 2011).

Other countries, such as Austria, Luxembourg and the UK, have firstly adopted part of the advertising rules (e.g. rules on the insertion of ad breaks and quantitative limits), mostly aligning them with the text of the directive, while they have postponed the implementation of more sensitive provisions, such as product placement, to a second stage of transposition. In the case of the UK, the decision on product placement was postponed till after a public consultation among stakeholders. This led to both the refusal to permit this new form of advertising until a new revision planned for 2011-12 and the maintenance of the status quo (product placement is only allowed in video on-demand programs and films and television programs acquired from outside Britain subject to limitations and safeguards). Such a decision denied the UK advertising industry, which is currently affected by a decline in revenues coming from traditional advertising, revenues estimated by the same government to be worth up to £35m over five years. Additionally in the UK the general implementation of more flexible rules on insertions of ad breaks has been watered down by the establishment of further restrictions for broadcasters with public service obligations.

Even though most countries seem to have understood the importance of establishing flexible advertising provisions, some appear not to have taken the new rules as an occasion for putting further restrictions in place (in the Netherlands the new media law establishes a 9pm watershed ban on alcoholic advertising on both TV and radio). In view of the important developments expected to happen in the months to come (drafts laws are ready for parliamentary procedures in Belgium South, Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland and Latvia), egta is increasing its efforts to help sales houses achieve a flexible interpretation of advertising provisions in their countries. For this purpose, the next European Affairs Group which will take place in Brussels next Thursday 23rd of April, is going to be dedicated to the progresses in the transposition of the directive as a way to empower participants with useful information and examples on how other countries have dealt with the same issues and problems and have succeeded or failed in their lobbying objectives.

18 February 2009
French broadcasters sign obesity charter

On February 18th 2009, heads of French TV stations and representatives of the food industry signed a charter together with the French Ministers for Health and Culture, in which they commit to promoting a healthy diet and physical activity in both editorial content and advertising broadcast on French television.

While TV channels have committed to dedicate a total of around 500 hours a year of their programming targeting minors to promote healthy nutrition and physical activities, their sales houses will offer preferential tariffs for social marketing campaigns promoting high nutrition profile products and a healthy lifestyle (a 60% reduction is envisaged for spots coming from the French Institute of Prevention and Education for Health). On the side of advertising content, food advertisers committed to ensuring that ad messages help support healthy lifestyles and engage in financing short programmes on healty nutrition targeting young audiences. According to the Charter, the French Broadcasting Council will be in charge of ensuring a correct implementation of the provisions. The French national self-regulatory organisation (ARPP), which is to revise the current food advertising code, will keep pre-clearing the ads before they are broadcast.

The signing of the Charter is expected to lead to the rejection of the advertising-related amendments tabled in the new “Hospital Reform Bil”, which will be discussed within the National Assembly in the next future. Calling for a ban on advertising for food high in fat, sugar and salt during and around programmes with an audience mostly composed of minors, would put in danger a major source of revenue for sales houses without ensuring the achievement of the commendable policy objective of decreasing the level of obesity among young people.

egta positively welcomes the initiative undertaken from its French member sales houses. Successful in preventing irresponsibility in commercial communications targeted at children, egta strongly believes in the effectiveness of advertising self-regulation mechanisms in achieving health policy objective.

9 January 2009
egta presents to the Council of Europe its comments on the second draft of the revised Convention on Transfrontier Television

On December 9, 2008, the Council of Europe issued its provisional agreement on the amendments proposed to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, reached by its Standing Commitee during its meeting of November 12-14, 2008. The agreement takes into account the comments sent by stakeholders in the framework of the preliminary consultation procedure and, in particular, it endorses some of egta’s suggestions, as expressed in its position paper of 31 October 2008 (to see egta’s response to the Council preliminary consultation click here). The Convention, which was first adopted in 1989, sets out general rules on audiovisual activities with the aim of facilitating the transmission of transfrontier broadcasts across Europe. As the Council of Europe’s geographical scope goes beyond EU borders, covering countries such as Russia, Turkey Croatia, Ukraine, etc., the Convention is crucial for most egta member sales houses which market ad space for transnational broadcasts. The review of the Council’s Convention is motivated by the technological, market and legal developments of the audiovisual sector and follows the enforcement of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) at EU level. While taking into account both the specificities linked to an international convention instrument and the issues of particular concern to the Council of Europe, the Convention needs to be aligned with the EU directive as much as possible. On the day the provisional agreement was issued, the Council launched a public consultation inviting bodies to send their comments and proposals. egta sent its contribution (to see egta’s response to this second public consultation click here). In its response to the consultation, egta restated its satisfaction with the text’s high degree of compliance with the AMS directive, and with its recognition and encouragement of using self-regulatory mechanisms. Furthermore, egta encouraged the Council to envisage a general definition of both self- and co-regulation that focus on overall concepts which are largely shared between the advertising industry and European decision-makers. During its next meeting on 25-27 February 2009, the Standing Committee on Media of the Council of Europe will decide on the follow-up to be given to this second consultation procedure.

25 September 2008
Food Advertising: the European Parliament adopts a resolution on how to fight obesity

On 25th September, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the EU's health policy to help reduce health problems due to poor nutrition, overweight and obesity. Tabled by the Italian MEP Alessandro Foglietta, the report aims to counter the rising incidence of obesity across Europe, calling for Member States to pursue some mid-term measures such as a better food labeling (visible and colourful labeling with information on calories and quality) or the application of quality and nutritional standards in schools.

Regarding the role of TV and radio advertising, the EU health debate especially focuses on adverts for food high in fat, salt and sugar targeted to children. The overall outcome of the Parliament’s vote on this sales houses' sensitive topic was positive. Although it still calls for the industry to establish protected times, the resolution confirms the approach followed by the European Commission in the Audiovisual Media Service directive, which encourages media service providers to develop codes of conduct before envisaging any binding restrictions. Recognising the added value of advertising self-regulation, members of the European Parliament acknowledge the role of recent industry initiatives in this field.

In view of this EU call, egta has recently launched two initiatives to strengthen food advertising self-regulation. After having sent a recommendation paper to television sales houses to help them engage in discussions with national stakeholders on how to strengthen advertising self-regulation, egta has committed to release guidelines on the International Chamber of Commerce framework code on food and beverage advertising by the end of 2009. Considering that media providers cannot draft codes of conducts on advertising alone, this document will instead support sales houses in their self-regulation "gate keeper" role and in turn, help to ensure that all broadcast advertising comply with the most commonly used self-regulatory code.

17 July 2008
European Court of Justice rules on advertising for medical or surgical treatments

On 17 July, the European Court of Justice issued its ruling on advertisements for health care treatments. The ruling states that the prohibition of advertisements for medical or surgical treatments on national television - envisaged by the Italian legislation, which at the same time permits such advertisements on local networks - is contrary to community law.

The Court finds, first of all, that the prohibition laid down by the Italian law of 1992 goes beyond that laid down by the Television without Frontiers Directive, one of whose provisions prohibits advertising for medical treatments available only on prescription. Under this directive, the Member States remain free to implement more detailed or stricter rules in the areas covered by the directive, however the Court points out that when exercising this right, they must respect the basic freedoms guaranteed by the EC Treaty. It is for this reason that the Italian national legislation was judged to be incoherent and against the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services in the internal market.

The case was referred by the Italian Court following a proceeding brought by a Spanish company operating in the medical treatment sector. The company had entrusted an advertising agency with carrying out an advertising campaign to be broadcast on an Italian national TV channel. After taking receipt of payment on account, the agency informed the company that in view of the Italian law, it was not possible to broadcast the advertisements envisaged, but the agency refused to refund the payment.   

17 July 2008
European Commission gives its green light for state aid to fund French public television as it moves towards ad-free broadcast

On 17 July, The European Commission allowed France to give 150 million Euros in state aid to its public television. The EU found that the aid would not distort competition on the media market because the aid would help France Télévision to fulfill its mission to provide quality programming while phasing out advertising. The injection comes as President Nicolas Sarkozy presses ahead with plans to ban advertising on public TV and radio.

As Sarkozy recently announced, advertising will be banned from public channels after 8pm as from 1 January 2009, and will then totally disappear by December 2011.  As of 2009, three additional sources of income should compensate for the loss in advertising revenues. These are the reallocation of resources used for other national radio and audiovisual bodies, a new levy on private broadcasters’ advertising revenues, and a tax on internet service providers’ and telecom operator’s turnovers. At the same time, France Télévision is asked to make some restructuring.

In order to counter balance the levy imposed on private broadcasters’ advertising revenues, the French government had envisaged some relaxation of advertising rules as part of its transposition of the new Audiovisual Media Service directive. Among the changes explored are the lengthening of advertising time allowed, the adoption of the clock hour system instead of the sliding hour and the right to additional advertising insertion in most types of programmes.

According to ZenithOptimedia’s forecasts, around 300mil Euros in 2009, 2010, 2011 and an additional 300mil Euros from 2012 will be redistributed on the market resulting from the advertising ban on the French Public Broadcaster.

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.

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.

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