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The Dutch Commissariaat voor de Media (Media Authority - CvdM) recently published a Regulation containing policy rules defining “commercial media on-demand services”, or video on-demand services, under the Dutch Media Act. Under the regulation, such video services must be registered as of 1 November 2011. The policy provides an elaboration of the criteria that determine whether a commercial media on-demand service is covered by the Dutch Media Act. The Act regulates matters such as the separation of commercial and editorial content, the protection of minors, advertising, product placement and sponsoring....

Pursuant to Article 43 of the Italian Audiovisual and Radio Media Services Code (Legislative Decree no. 177/2005, as amended in 2010 when the AVMS Directive was implemented into Italian legislation, see IRIS 2010-2/25 and IRIS 2010-4/31), which, in view of the value of competition and pluralism in the broadcasting sector, prohibits achieving and maintaining dominant positions, the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (Italian Communications Authority - AGCOM), periodically conducts a specific analysis in order to estimate the resources included in the so-called “SIC” (Sistema Integrato...

On 22 July 2011, by approving Deliberation no. 427/11/CONS, the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) launched a public consultation on the protection of media pluralism in the digital terrestrial broadcasting market. Remedies for the protection of pluralism were first set up by Deliberation no. 136/05/CONS (see IRIS 2005-5/19), and then revised by Deliberation no. 70/11/CONS (see IRIS 2011-8/30), in accordance with a revision clause contained in the first Deliberation. In particular, Deliberation no. 70/11/CONS repealed Article 1, paragraph 1, lett. b) no. 1 of Deliberation no. 136/05/CONS,...

A number of important amendments were recently introduced into the Statute of Georgia “On Broadcasting” of 23 December 2004 (see IRIS 2005-7/24). The first set of changes was adopted by parliament on 8 April 2011 and promulgated on 2 May 2011 (Statute No. 4525). Article 37 of the broadcasting law is amended to prohibit a broadcasting license from being held by a legal entity registered in an off-shore zone, and/or a legal entity, whose share/stock is directly or indirectly owned by a person registered in an off-shore zone. The Statute also adds Article 37-1 that obliges applicants for a license...

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has decided that a continuous visual reference to Skype during an interview may constitute product placement. Sky News broadcast an interview via a video call in its coverage of the Utoya Island massacre in Norway. Whenever the interviewee was shown full-screen, the words ‘VIA SKYPE’ were shown almost continuously in a caption in the top right-hand corner. There was no product placement agreement with Skype, and Ofcom was concerned that this amounted to giving undue prominence in a programme to a product, service or trade mark, which is prohibited by the...