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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...

According to the Television Without Frontiers Directive (Directive 89/552/EEC, as amended by Directive 97/36/EC), teleshopping comes in the form of either teleshopping spots or teleshopping windows: the former are subject to an hourly 12-minute limit, whereas the latter are required to be longer than 15 minutes. Conversely, under Italian law prior to November 2007, teleshopping was required to have a minimum duration of 3 minutes and was not subject to the hourly 12-minute limit, which only applied to advertising spots. This was one of the reasons which led the European Commission toinitiate a...

The issue of political advertising on radio and television arose again in 2007. The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) instructed commercial stations to cease broadcasting an advertisement for Trócaire, the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland, on the grounds that it contravened Section 10(3) of The Radio and Television Act 1988, which prohibits advertising “directed towards a religious or political end” (seeIRIS 2004-8: 11, IRIS 2003-2: 11, IRIS 2001-7: 9 and IRIS 2004-3: 10). The core issue was a reference in the advertisement to an online petition that...

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has proposed changes in the rules relating to the distribution of television advertising. These reflect the provisions in the new Audiovisual Media Services Directive (see IRIS 2008-1: 5). Currently, the rules applied to most TV channels reflect those in the Television Without Frontiers Directive and limit advertising to no more than an average of nine minutes per hour plus three minutes for teleshopping, with no more than 12 minutes advertising in each hour. There must be a break of 20 minutes between advertising slots, which must be taken during natural...

On 12 March 2008, the House of Lords announced its decision, upholding the view of the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (now “Clearcast”), that an advertisement submitted on behalf of Animal Defenders International for broadcast clearance would infringe Section 321(2) of the Communications Act 2003, i.e. the prohibition on political advertising. There was no disagreement that the content of the advertisement was inoffensive. It was intended as part of a campaign, entitled "My Mate's a Primate", which sought to draw the public’s attention to the exploitative (in ADI’s eyes) use of primates...