By Chris Jones - 11th December 2006
MEPs are expected to come under pressure from all sides as they debate proposed changes to EU television regulations in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
EU media commissioner Viviane Reding is proposing wide-ranging changes to the rules, commonly known as the Television without Frontiers Directive.
These include allowing product placement advertising, revising the rules on the number of adverts per hour and new rules to cover online or mobile media
With so many proposed changes MEPs have plenty to discuss, and they are coming under increasing pressure from a broad range of lobbies to tinker further with the text.
Consumer groups, for example, are pushing for deputies to vote to restrict junk food adverts aimed at children, in line with the national ban proposed by British TV regulator Ofcom in November.
And they also want MEPs to uphold the ban on product placement, arguing that “viewers will continue to be manipulated by commercial messages fully integrated into the plots of TV shows”.
The product placement proposal would follow a compromise deal agreed by member states, allowing countries willing to allow product placement to opt-out of a blanket ban.
TV channels would have to announce the use of product placement within their programmes at regular intervals during transmission, but consumer groups argue that this would do little to protect viewers.
“Children will be manipulated most as they spend 70 per cent of their TV viewing time outside so-called ‘children’s hours’ and are not able to recognise hidden advertising,” a confederation of EU consumer groups said in an open letter to MEPs on Monday.
The media industry, meanwhile, is considering at potentially damaging proposals that would allow member states to block content broadcast from other countries on the grounds of public interest.
“We call on MEPs to ensure that one member state cannot raise objections to programmes or advertising contained in incoming broadcasts or on-demand services from another member state on the very broad grounds of ‘general public interest’,” said Angela Mills-Wade, executive director of the European publishers council.
“Here lies the road to censorship. This derogation gives member states carte blanche to summon up ‘general interest’ as an excuse to block any content from other countries.”
“Content is based on national culture and allowing member states to interfere would completely undermine the integrity of the directive.”
National culture ministers, meeting last month, agreed to cooperate more closely to ensure that strict consumer protection rules in some countries were not circumvented by broadcasters based in other EU states.
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