Television without frontiers

Next week (13 November), the Finnish government, holder of the EU presidency, will attempt to secure agreement from member states on the future direction of EU legislation on broadcasting. With the advent of digital technology and on-demand broadcast services, the media landscape has changed significantly since the ‘Television without frontiers’ (TVWF) directive was created 17 years ago. Forging a consensus among member states on how legislation should be updated will not be easy.

Six committees in the European Parliament have been debating the Commission’s proposals, which are to be voted on by all MEPs in mid-December. In the meantime, Parliament’s culture committee, which is leading the discussions, will form an opinion on proposed amendments next week (13 November).

The European Commission published its proposals for an update of EU broadcasting legislation, which will in future be known as the audiovisual media services directive, at the end of last year. "The present…directive and its architecture essentially date back to 1989 and thus to a time where users experienced audiovisual media only via two or three TV stations per country, if at all," explains Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding. "At that time, a broadcast was…seen by everybody at the same time, and public interest objectives required strong protection in all EU countries by means of media regulation. Today, in the age of multimedia competition, growing diversity of media services and increasing individualisation of media usage, a fundamental modern-isation of the rules from the 1980s is required."

Issues that could spark debate among EU culture ministers at their meeting next week include updated advertising rules intended to offer more flexibility to linear broadcast services, which are fast losing audience figures to on-demand services. Parliament wants to tighten the Commission’s draft rules considerably, leaving little leeway to broadcasters losing advertising money to the internet.

Extension of the ‘country-of-origin’ principle, which allows broadcasters to operate freely across borders while only complying with the rules of their home country, is also likely to give rise to disagreement. This issue is particularly fraught given its prominence in the debate over the controversial services directive.

One issue that does seem to have been settled ahead of next week’s meeting is the debate over the extension of EU broadcast laws to cover non-linear services.

The Commission’s proposals appeared to have spilled over onto web-based user-generated services, causing consternation among some countries, notably the UK, which want a light touch for regulation of emerging new media services.

Reding is confident that her proposals are "future-proof". "We deliberately do not focus on specific technologies or infrastructures which may be used today or tomorrow to deliver or transport audiovisual media content, but on the content itself and on the degree of user control," she says.

"Where the user is in control, this means where he pulls audiovisual media content…from a content provider, the content provider will be subject only to a light set of minimum rules. Where an audiovisual programme is pushed to the consumer, additional rules apply. I believe that this two-tier system…will be future-proof and support the emergence of a strong European audiovisual content industry."

Next week (13 November), the Finnish government, holder of the EU presidency, will attempt to secure agreement from member states on the future direction of EU legislation on broadcasting. With the advent of digital technology and on-demand broadcast services, the media landscape has changed significantly since the ‘Television without frontiers’ (TVWF) directive was created 17 years ago. Forging a consensus among member states on how legislation should be updated will not be easy.