EU agrees to ease TV advertising rules
(BRUSSELS) - EU culture ministers agreed Thursday to ease television advertising rules and allow product placements, while giving individual member states the choice of setting tougher standards.
After 18 months of talks, the ministers approved a compromise with the European Parliament updating rules dating from 1989 that in effect set minimum standards on television advertising across the 27-nation bloc.
While the new package keeps a limit of 12 minutes of advertising per hour, it drops a ceiling of three hours per day of advertising that broadcasters currently have to respect.
For films, made-for-television films, children and information shows, the minimum between each commercial break will be cut to 30 minutes from 45 currently.
Meanwhile, so-called product placements, where a company's product is given a high profile in a programme, will be allowed with the exception of children and informational shows and on condition that viewers are informed before or afterwards.
Till now there has been no EU-wide policy on whether product placements are allowed or banned, leaving it to member states to decide.
However, the new package gives member states the flexibility to set tighter advertising rules on broadcasters if they want to.
The new package also retains the existing country-of-origin principle which says that EU broadcasters only have to respect the rules of the country where they are based not into which they broadcast.
That was one of the main demands of Britain, which is home to half of the EU's broadcasters.
The new advertising rules are part of a broader broadcast package, which aims to update so-called television without frontiers regulations going back to 1989 covering cultural diversity and the protection of minors as well as advertising.
"This important piece of modernising legislation brings Europe's audiovisual policies into the 21st century, providing a welcome shot in the arm to industry," EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said.
"It promises less regulation, better financing for European content and higher visibility to Europe's key values, cultural diversity and the protection of minors," she added.
The package is expected to be formally rubber stamped in the second half of the year and then member states will have two years to inscribe it into their national legislation.
