Brussels, 06/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - At the hearing at the European Parliament on Thursday and Friday on the draft review of the Television without Frontiers directive (Europe will be returning to this), the European Consumers' Organisation BEUC launched a new campaign against the danger of the new directive allowing product placement on television. BEUC gave participants at the hearing a series of examples of this hidden advertising, allowed in the United States, where actors in TV series vaunt the merits of a particular brand in conversation. BEUC explains that it gave participants a compilation DVD to illustrate how in the US, script-writers are encouraged to alter scenes and dialogues to advertise products.
Jim Murray, BEUC Director, warns that the Commission is proposing to ban product placement in television news programmes and children's television, but not in the vast majority of programmes people watch, and BEUC wants product placement to be banned across the board. BEUC also wants a ban on TV advertising of junk food in order to try and do something about the shocking levels of obesity in children and adults in the EU. (To obtain a copy of the BEUC's DVD, phone the Brussels number, +32 2 743 1590.)