An encouraging obligation? HFSS food and drink advertising and codes of conduct under the Audiovisual Media Services Directive

Posted on December 10, 2009 | Filed Under national regulatory authorities, events / publications

One of the more recent arrivals on the scene of regulatory concern for audiovisual policymakers and supervisory bodies is the promotion of unhealthy foodstuffs to children which may have adverse effects on their physiological well-being and development. As one among several factors feeding the development of childhood obesity as part of a wider obesity epidemic (information from the World Health Organization), marketing practices have increasingly come under scrutiny and regulatory authorities as well as elected representatives have directed their attention toward the issue. In Europe, already before the process of revising the regulatory framework for television broadcasting had come under way, countries like the UK were therefore considering regulatory action to address the endangerment of public health by food and drink advertising notably of products that are high in fat or salt or sugar (HFSS) (for a summary of the evidence to which UK Government policy responded in 2003, see this note by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology; for recent UK evidence regarding child obesity, see here and here).

With the adoption of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, the diverse initiatives at the national level were complemented by a general European framework provision on advertising of unhealthy food and drink set out in Article 3e (2) AVMSD [the ‘food provision’] stipulating that

Member States and the Commission shall encourage media service providers to develop codes of conduct regarding inappropriate audiovisual commercial communication, accompanying or included in children’s programmes, of foods and beverages containing nutrients and substances with a nutritional or physiological effect, in particular those such as fat, trans-fatty acids, salt/sodium and sugars, excessive intakes of which in the overall diet are not recommended.

The obligation thus made incumbent on the Commission and the Member States is similar to that of Article 3c of the new Directive, which requires national authorities to encourage providers to increase accessibility of their services to users with a hearing or visual disability. While both provisions target very tangible characteristics of both linear and non-linear audiovisual media services, the nature of the obligations that they impose inevitably leads to questions about their likely effectiveness. Read more

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author: Oliver Fueg | Permalink | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

BERT vs. EECMA - EP Committees vote against the “superagency”

Posted on July 9, 2008 | Filed Under communication technologies, national regulatory authorities

On monday evening, the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) and the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) of the European Parliament voted on the European Commission’s Telecom reform proposal (see the press release here).

While the EP agreed to various proposals brought forward by the Commission, e.g. to give national regulators the power to require from dominant operators the functional separation of their access network infrastructure and service arms, it did not, however, endorse the Commission’s plans to establish a European Telecom Market Authority but sticks with rapporteur Pilar del Castillo Vera’s idea to transform the current ERG into a so called Body of European Regulators in Telecom (BERT) instead.

Not suprisingly Viviane Reding remains rather sceptical on this:

I welcome the good intentions behind the idea of creating a new Body of European Regulators for Telecommunications (BERT). However, businesses and consumers in Europe are interested in results, not in lengthy procedures. I have doubts whether BERT and the heavy Article 7-procedure now created will be able to deliver coherent regulatory responses to the regulatory obstacles still far too present in Europe’s single telecoms market. Questions remain especially as regards the financing of the new Body as well as its capability to arrive swiftly and efficiently at common positions.

However, the real set back for the Commission of course is the fact that instead of establishing a new european agency it couldn’t even obtain the full veto power on remedies, which might have been a good bargain and the whole idea behind the proposed EECMA after all (see Hans Peters post and comment here). According to ITRE and IMCO BERT now will be the one to have the last word.
The final vote on the proposal will be given by the European Parliament’s plenary on the 3 of September 2008.

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author: gregor | Permalink | | Print This Article | 4 Comments

New eJournal launched!

Posted on September 19, 2007 | Filed Under national regulatory authorities, events / publications

icl.pngTo follow Austrian constitutional developements has been almost impossible for non-German speaking professionals, since the number of publication in other languages has been negligible. This lack however has been filled to a certain extent by the recently launched Vienna Online Journal on International Constitutional Law. The quarterly published eJournal does not only feature articles on a variety of topics in international constitutional law but also wants to open a window to recent constitutional developments in Austria for an international audience. It does so by summarizing and commenting the latest judgements of the Austrian Constitutional Court which until now were only available in German.

The first issue includes a summary of and comment on the Court’s decision on the constitutionality of a provision in the Austrian Communications Authority Act which regulates the Communications Authority’s publication of the monthly monitoring results on the compliance of broadcasters with the advertising regulations laid down in the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation Act, the Private Television Act and the Private Radio Broadcasting Act. The Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional to name the broadcasters in the publication of monitoring results as this could lead to a conviction in advance - against which the broadcasters were granted no right to appeal - and thereby would contradict the presumption of innocence and the principle of objectivity.

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author: gregor | Permalink | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

Towards a European FCC?

Posted on June 15, 2007 | Filed Under communication technologies, national regulatory authorities, spectrum policy

logo_agencies.JPGIn her presentation of the European Commission’s 12th report on the EU’s telecom market commissioner Vivian Reding pointed out the lack of a real level-playing field in the telecommunications sector and made a case for consolidating the internal market further, an EU-wide approach to managing spectrum and scarce resources as well as strengthening consumer protection. All these issues will therefore be part of a reform taking place in 2007, which shall also encompass a proposal for a “European FCC”.
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author: gregor | Permalink | | Print This Article | 1 Comment