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On 25 May 2016 the European Commission published a proposal to amend the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). As the Commission noted in its press release, the aim of the proposal is: “to achieve a better balance of the rules which today apply to traditional broadcasters, video-on-demand providers and video-sharing platforms, especially when it comes to protecting children. The revised AVMSD also strengthens the promotion of European cultural diversity, ensures the independence of audiovisual regulators and gives more flexibility to broadcasters over advertising”. The main changes pertain...

On 2 March 2016, the Chamber of Deputies (lower Chamber of the Romanian Parliament) rejected a draft Law, which was intended to abolish the audiovisual licence fee. The Senate (upper Chamber of the Romanian Parliament) will have the final decision (see inter alia IRIS 2003-4/24, IRIS 2013-5/37, IRIS 2014-1/38, IRIS 2014-6/30, IRIS 2015-6/33). According to the initiators of the draft law, the licence fee collected by the Romanian public broadcasting services would be completely cut, and would not be replaced by another source of revenue. The Legislative Council, which issued a positive opinion on...

Procedures on the media coverage of elections in Portugal have been changed during the past year and had effect on recent elections, both legislative and presidential (on October 2015 and January 2016, respectively). Currently, the law on the media coverage of elections (no. 72-A/2015) stipulates as a general principle (Article 4) that, during elections, the media enjoy editorial freedom and freedom of programming. Amongst changes introduced is the exclusion of the relevance of political proposals for the choice of democratic alternatives as criteria for political representativeness in debates...

On 1 March 2016, the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland’s (ASAI) new Code of Standards for Advertising and Marketing Communications in Ireland (7th edition) came into effect (for previous codes, see IRIS 2006-2/24 and IRIS 2002-5/21). The ASAI is an independent self-regulatory body, and the code applies to advertising and marketing communication in all media in Ireland, including television and digital media. The new 132-page code contains a number of new provisions, including the following: first, there is a new section on e-cigarettes, which provides that “marketing communications for...

On 13 April 2016, Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, issued a Statement concerning e-cigarettes. It specifies amendments which Ofcom is making to the Broadcast Code and also the amendments which it has instructed the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice to make to the BCAP Code: the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising. BCAP had introduced rules on the marketing of e-cigarettes in 2014 (see IRIS 2015-1/23). The changes were ordered by the UK Secretary for Health under section 321(6) of the Communications Act 2003. The amendments arise from the UK’s implementation of the EU Tobacco Products...