Brussels, 19/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - One year after a new directive took effect on audiovisual media services, member states have only made slight progress in adjusting their national regulations, the Commission bemoaned on 18 December. Only Romania has fully implemented the new European provisions. The other 26 member states are currently working on transposition into internal law (the deadline being set for December 2009). The new regulation aims to strengthen the European television and audiovisual sector by lightening the rules and creating equitable competition conditions for audiovisual media services “without borders”. The EU will then have a single market for this kind of service, offering legal security to companies and programmes with more variety and better quality for televiewers. “I strongly recommend that member states rapidly and flexibly apply the regulation so that television producers, broadcasters and viewers may benefit from it as soon as possible”, said Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for the information society and media.
Romania has used every possibility put forward by the directive for making things more flexible, especially when it comes to product placement, the Commission is pleased to say. The other member states as well as EEA countries (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein) and candidate countries (Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey) are still working on the transposition of the new rules. Progress is slow and some governments must still conduct a public consultation exercise on this (Denmark, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain). In other member states, new draft regulations are ready for parliamentary procedure that will take place at the beginning of next year (Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands and Portugal). Luxembourg has announced that it had already transposed certain provisions, mainly those on advertising. Austria will follow in January. In France, a draft law was presented last month and the revised law may be adopted early next year. The new directive facilitates access by producers and televised programme providers to financing from new forms of advertising such as shared screen advertising or product placement, which is authorised in all programmes except television news, documentaries and programmes for children. Broadcasters may also more easily interrupt their programmes given the abolition of the rule which makes it an obligation to leave a 20 minute period between each advertising break. (I.L./transl.jl)