Brussels, 08/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament organised a public hearing on 1 and 2 June, chaired by Ruth Hieronymi (EPP-ED, Germany), on revising the Television without Frontiers directive. The event was jointly organised by six EP committees, joined by leading public and private broadcasting managers and representatives of watchdogs and regulatory authorities, consumer groups, scientists and the media. In six panel discussions, the participants addressed the issues which have been the most controversial since the European Commission unveiled its draft directive on 13 December 2005, whether product placement should be allowed on television as part of the relaxing of television advertising rules; whether blogs, online and private video games should be covered by the directive; whether there is enough protection of children; and whether the idea of 'country of origin' is still relevant.
On the directive's scope of application, Michael Holubek of Vienna's University of Economics and Business Administration said it was a wise move by the European Commission to regulate each sector separately but said that the draft directive lacked clarity on the type of broadcasting it covered. Timothy Suter of the UK welcomed many measures, like updating advertising rules and keeping the idea of the country of origin, but felt the review went further than necessary. He said it was wrong to include blogs and other private videos in the directive because they are not mass media products. He warned that while nobody disapproved of protecting vulnerable people from certain material, regulation from above as proposed by the European Commission could threaten the ability to regulate. Noting the arrival of telecoms operators on the public broadcasting market, with their vast budgets compared with public broadcasters, Patrick Duhamel of France Television urged MEPs to consider the special role played by public broadcasting and for content to remain at the heart of EU regulations in order to protect cultural diversity. Welcoming the separation of advertising from editorial content, Duhamel opposed too drastic a change in advertising rules. French Socialist MEP Henri Weber said that in the future, the problem would not be new broadcasting platforms so much as the arrival of newcomers, like telecoms companies, on the media market, whose compliance will need to be monitored. Weber warned that the European broadcasting model was under threat and had to be defended.
The panel on advertising and product placement held a heated debate among supporters of advertising pointing out that it was the main source of revenue for television, and opponents fearing the risks of relaxing the rules. According to Walter Neuhauser of the European Association of Television and Radio Sales Houses, advertising acts to boost cultural diversity because the revenue it generates can be used to ensure varied television programmes which would otherwise be too expensive to produce. We want more flexibility rather than more advertising, he said, but wanted the 12 minutes an hour restriction on advertising to be extended to 15 minutes. Recognising that advertising income has contributed to the development of broadcasting, Jim Murray of BEUC said that advertising impacted on broadcasting without people being aware of it. We are swimming in a sea of sales messages, he said, adding that he was in favour of maintaining the 12 minutes an hour limit for advertising. (See EUROPE 9025 on the European Consumers' Organisations' views on advertising and product placement). The European Commission is suggesting that product placement be authorised with certain restrictions but Christina Kallas of the Federation of Scriptwriters in Europe said the European Commission's ideas were a danger to scriptwriters and other professionals whose work would be distorted through having to add disguised publicity. She said there was a danger of the EU slipping and adopting the US system, giving the example of a US television programme which included paid product placement for 626 products! She said that the industry had to be regulated and the EU should oppose such practices. Tom Barnicoat of Endemol disagreed, arguing that products and product placement were vital sources of income and the EU should take a constructive avant-gard approach to avoid losing competitiveness. He said product placement existed in reality anyway and the wisest option would be to admit it and manage it. His view was shared by Marie-Helene Descamps MEP (EPP-ED, France), but Heide Ruhle MEP (Green, Germany) said it was false that product placement was a big source of income for television because it only accounts for 1.3% of television revenues in the US.
Carlo Rognoni of RAI in Italy said the European Commission's proposals were hazy about copyright issues. Some pundits defend the idea of the country of origin, but Cecilia Renfors criticised the idea, giving the example of a Swedish operator setting up in the UK to avoid the strict Swedish rules but continuing to broadcast to a Swedish audience in Sweden. French EPP-ED MEP Jacques Toubon said there were ways round such problems and the Commission had foreseen criteria for avoiding abuse of the country of origin idea concerning the source of operators' income and the target audience.
In a panel discussion on protecting children, Lucy Cronin of the European Digital Media Association said children's attitudes to the media had changed and the responsibility of protecting children should be shared by parents, schools and new media service suppliers. She said the current rules were out of date and a multi-level approach would be more effective, based on three initiatives involving both the public and private sector which worked very well, she argued, to control children's media consumption. Erik Attila Farkas of the National Radio and Television Commission in Hungary explained some of the problems faced by new EU Member States. He said that Member States used different definitions of the same concept and suggested that the EU set common EU criteria and descriptions to ensure greater harmonisation of material legally suitable for children in all EU countries.
The panel on promoting media pluralism and cultural diversity was addressed by Aidan White of the European Journalists' Federation, who feared that the revision of the directive would leave no room for safeguards for pluralism and media ownership. He regretted that the EU had never wanted to get involved in the issue of who owns what, but this was a vital issue that could not only be decided by competition law. The EJF takes a stronger line, not bending to the interests of new internet players. These views were not shared by Jurgen Doetz of the Verband Privater Rundfunk und Telekommunikation, who said there were enough guarantees for diversity given the growing number of television channels. He asserted that no further measures were required, but various MEPs explained that pluralism is not always guaranteed at present.