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On 18 May 2010 Seimas adopted a new wording of the Act on the Funding of Political Parties and Political Campaigns and the Control of the Funding. The new wording of the Act will come into force on 15 September 2010. The provisions of the adopted Act are particularly important to broadcasters as they allow broadcasting advertising clips of political parties in radio and television programmes again. This was not allowed by the previous law (see IRIS 2008-8: 15/26). According to the amended Act such political video and audio advertisements shall not be shorter than 90 seconds duration. However, the...

Up to now, the Ofcom Broadcast Code has prohibited product placement. However, owing to changes in EU and national law, “the placing of references to products, services or trade marks in television programmes in return for payment” is now to be permitted. Ofcom, consequently, intends to amend the Code, removing the prohibition and incorporating enabling rules. It has initiated a Consultation on the matter. Such rules would impact on other rules permitting other types of commercial references (e.g., sponsorship) and the Consultation includes proposals for revising those rules.

The Advertising Standards Authority has been designated by the UK regulator Ofcom as the co-regulator for advertisements appearing on VOD services which are subject to statutory regulation, namely, the Communications Act, 2003, section 368A. Such advertisements are subject to the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code) and, in particular, the Appendix, which allows the ASA to take legal action against the VOD service provider in the event of Code infringements. A revised CAP Code (as well as the Code of Broadcast Advertising, the BCAP Code) comes into effect...

Once again, the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media - monitoring and enforcement of media regulation) has rendered decisions relating to forbidden product placement. Although the two cases both present similar facts, only the first decision, against the commercial broadcaster VMMa, is explicitly grounded in the regulation on product placement. The second, against the public broadcasting corporation VRT, concerns a radio programme, hence the new regulation on product placement is not applicable in this case (see Article 98 of the new Flemish Media Decree). On 26 April...

The new rules for product placement are without doubt creating problems for public-sector broadcasters in Belgium. Following on from the two cases involving VRT (see IRIS 2010-5: 1/9 and IRIS 2010-7: 1/7), it is now the turn of RTBF to be ordered by the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory body - CSA) to pay a fine of EUR 10,000 and to broadcast a communiqué for having failed to observe the statutory provisions concerning product placement. In February 2010, to mark the Chinese New Year, RTBF broadcast a daily micro-programme devoted to Eastern cookery entitled “A table on...