House Of Lords Criticises EU Media Directive
A report published today by the House of Lords European Union Committee criticises the EU Commission’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive for its attempt to introduce ‘burdensome and inappropriate’ regulation which it says could damage British industry.
The EU’s proposals would see ‘television-like’ new media services come under the same European regulatory framework as traditional broadcasting.
The European Commission argued that these ‘new’ broadcasters are competing for audiences and advertising revenue with traditional broadcasters and so should be subject to the same rules.
The Lords Committee argues that is not the role of regulation to protect established broadcasters from new competition operating under different business models. The Committee suggests in its report that it would be preferable to liberalise the provisions on advertising for established broadcasters rather than seek to extend existing provisions to new media services.
As it now stands, the Directive would introduce a number of additional advertising restrictions on news and children’s programming.
The Committee argues that these restrictions may have severely adverse consequences for the quality of ‘free to air’ programming available, particularly children’s programming.
It points out that enforcement of the proposed Directive will be fraught with difficulties particularly as the range of new media continues to develop and expand, and the definition of the services covered may not offer sufficient legal certainty.
The Committee is particularly concerned that the EU’s proposals could force new media broadcasters to move their base of operations away from Europe and broadcast into the EU from a non-European base where they would be exempt from the Directive. The report says that this would be particularly damaging to the UK as it has a thriving new media industry.
Lord Freeman, chairman of the Committee, said: “As a committee we were very concerned about the Commission’s original Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which sought to bring a host of non-traditional media operators under the same controls as traditional television broadcasters. We believe that this attempt was seriously misguided, and any future efforts to do the same would be a grave error.
“It is not the role of the EU or any other regulators to protect established broadcasters from new competition from organisations operating with fundamentally different business models.
“Such an attempt risks damaging the new media industry, which is a vibrant and important sector of the UK’s economy.”
European Commission: www.ec.europa.eu