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In December 2008, the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media - monitoring and enforcement of media regulation) issued several interesting decisions. Two of them will be addressed below. Firstly, the Algemene Kamer (General Chamber) condemned the commercial broadcasting corporation SBS Belgium for a triple breach of the so-called “20 minutes rule” during the broadcasting of the programme “Lost”. This rule, described in Article 101 § 5 of the Omroepdecreet (Flemish Decree on Radio-broadcasting and Television), requires a period of at least twenty minutes to intervene between...

On 5 December 2008, the Flemish Government approved a draft of a new Media Decree, which aims to implement the Audiovisual Media Services Directive 2007/65/EC. The draft has been introduced in the Flemish Parliament, which is strongly expected to grant its approval to the final text of the new Decree before the regional elections in June 2009. The draft contains a set of modifications and modernizes the broadcasting law in the Flemish Community. Some of its most striking characteristics are highlighted below. The draft differentiates between “broadcasting activities” and “broadcasting services”....

The draft of a new Flemish Media Decree introduces, for the first time, a regulation on product placement. As the law currently stands, product placement is submitted to the common advertising regulation of the Omroepdecreet (Flemish Decree on Radio-broadcasting and Television). The relevant provision is article 105, which prohibits advertising in audiovisual programmes, unless unavoidable. Advertisements belonging to “the ordinary living environment or ordinary streetscape”, presented unintentionally and without any emphasis, are to be considered as being unavoidable (§1). The same holds true...

On 6 May 2008, the European Commission sent a reasoned opinion to Belgium on the application of EC broadcasting legislation, in the context of “must-carry” rules imposed on broadcasters in the bilingual region of Brussels-Capital. Such rules, which involve obligations imposed on network operators, as for example cable companies or telecom operators, to transmit specific radio and television broadcast channels and services, are permitted under Article 31 of the EC’s Universal Service Directive. According to the directive, “must-carry” rules can be introduced when a significant number of end-users...

On 18 October 2007, the Court of Justice of the European Communities delivered a landmark decision in the case between KommAustria and ORF on call-TV determining under what circumstances it came closer to commercial advertising and under what circumstances it was rather a matter of tele-shopping (see IRIS 2008-1: 4). On 21 February 2008, in application of this jurisprudence, the Collège d’Autorisation et de Contrôle (authorisation and supervision panel) of the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory body – CSA) of the French-speaking Community found against the editor of the...