The intentions are good. Even so, the EU has managed to attract a raft of criticisms for it new TV directive styled: Televisions Without Frontiers. And the proposal hasn’t even been released yet.
The idea behind the new regulations is to bring TV advertising up to date, allowing product placement in TV programmes; a practice which is currently banned in the UK, Germany and France, but allowed in the US. The directive is also expected to relax rules on the frequency and length of TV advertising.
And, most controversial of all, the directive will bring TV on the net and on mobile phones into the fold.
Somewhat quirkily, the directive is dividing video content into linear, that’s when the order the content is broadcast is determined by the TV channel, and non linear, in which the viewer can watch video and other content on demand. We say ‘quirkily,’ because in the new digital age, with a plethora of TV channels available to the viewer, the boundaries between linear and non-linear TV are blurring before net and mobile phone TV has even taken off.
Many argue you can’t regulate such a dynamic industry, and any form of regulation could limit growth and cede the advantage to the US.
But the criticisms don’t stop there. Others are still fighting the battle against product placement. The BBC, for example, are arguing that news reports will lose any pretence of objectivity, while Vincent Porter, an advisor for Voice of the Listener & Viewer said, ‘We are moving into an area where television programs are effectively closet advertising vehicles.”
The trouble is, there might be a myriad of criticisms of the directive, but they are largely incompatible with each other. A leading French director, like so many of his countrymen, is riding the protection of industry hobby horse, arguing that the directive will allow US producers improved access to the European market - effectively swamping European culture.
But the directive does have its fans. Some argue that by allowing product placement into programmes and new source of revenue will be introduced bringing with it new vibrancy to the European industry.
And product placement will not be all-pervasive. It will be banned from children’s programmes for example, and since this is the EU, any directive will come will a twist of complexity.
Not everyone believes the Internet should be left un-regulated. By subjecting Internet TV to regulation, it will be possible to have some control over the morality and content of programmes watched by minors, for example.
Media is changing incredibly fast. Before our eyes, the old established regulated forms of mass media are being swallowed up by the anarchic Internet. But if ISPs think this will happen without regulation, they are falling themselves.
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