The European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education has
accepted a compromise text of the proposed Audio Visual Media
Services (AVMS) Directive. Designed to replace 1997's Television
Without Frontiers Directive, the AVMS Directive has been the
subject of controversy over a number of issues, including
advertising and the extent to which it will apply to internet
broadcasting.
The European Commission proposed the Directive, which is now on
its second reading in Parliament. The Parliamentary Committee has
reached its compromise with the office of the Presidency, which is
currently held by Germany. The proposal must still be approved by
the ministers responsible for media in all 27 member states.
The Directive permits limited product placement. "The placement
of a specific product would be allowed in a limited range of
programmes, and then only under strict rules," said a Parliament
statement. "Product placement would be banned in news and current
affairs programmes, children's programmes, documentaries and
programmes of advice."
Programmes which carry placed products must alert viewers
several times. "Before a programme containing product placement
starts and when it ends, a special signal should appear. This
signal should also appear before commercial breaks," said the
statement.
The compromise text also orders that many programmes can only
carry one advertisement break every half hour. That rule applies to
films, children's programmes, news programmes and films made for
television, but excludes series, serials, light entertainment
programmes and documentaries.
The compromise Directive text also restricts advertising to
children. A code of conduct for broadcasting to children will form
part of the Directive and will ban the advertising of junk food to
children.
The Directive will also ensure that children's programmes will
not carry adverts at all unless they are 30 minutes long or
longer.
The Directive was significantly altered by the Parliament last
December at its first reading, and the Commission produced a second
text in March in the hope that it would win the agreement of the
Parliament and ministers.
The House of Lords in the UK recently opposed the proposal. Its
European Union Committee said that the Directive was designed to
help traditional media protect their advertising businesses from
competition from new digital media.
The proposals will now be sent to ministers for their approval
and then voted on by the Parliament, where the amended Directive
will be passed if a simple majority of MEPs backs it.
