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Several amendments have been made during the months of March and April 2013 to different acts pertaining to the Bulgarian Media Law. An amendment and a supplement to the Electronic Communications Act (ECA) introduced a new Art. 231 (published on 15 March 2013 in the "Official Gazette", issue 27). The purpose of this provision is the protection of the rights of media consumers, especially in the case of commercial disputes between television broadcasters and network operators. Therefore, Art. 231 envisages that the contract between the consumer and the network operator has to outline a detailed...

On 19 October 2012 the Government submitted a proposal to implement the AVMS Directive into Norwegian law by amending kringkastingsloven (the Norwegian Broadcasting Act). The amendment was enacted by Parliament on 10 December 2012 with effect from 1 January 2013. This means that the scope of the Broadcasting Act has been extended to include audiovisual on-demand services, but is limited to on-demand services that are competing with traditional television broadcasts. One of the other main changes to the Act is that it inserts certain exceptions to the previous prohibition against product placement...

On 14 January 2013 the Rechtbank Amsterdam (Amsterdam District Court) ruled that electronically-added advertisements displayed with games results, so-called “scribes”, (i.e., promotional expressions) are not allowed under the Mediawet 2008 (Dutch Media Act - Mw). On 10 September 2009 the Commissariaat voor de Media (Dutch Media Authority) imposed a EUR 60,000 fine on the Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (Dutch Public Broadcaster NOS) for not complying with the sponsorship rules applicable to public service broadcasters (violating Article 2.89 (1)(b) Mw) by using the above-mentioned scribes. NOS filed...

On 4 January 2013, the Magyar Köztársaság Alkotmánybíróság (Constitutional Court of Hungary) annulled the new Election Act which a.o. amended regulations on political advertising. The provisions gave the exclusive right to disseminate political advertisements to the public service media. Subsequent to the ruling, the government submitted a draft amendment to the Magyarország Alaptörvénye (Fundamental Law, Constitution of Hungary). The content of the amendment implements the wording of the provision, which the Constitutional Court had eliminated, into the Constitution. On 26 November 2012, Hungary’s...

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has decided that a number of sponsorship credits were in breach of its Broadcasting Code. These are credits that identify the sponsors of programmes, as is required for reasons of transparency. Indeed, the Code requires that sponsorship is clearly identified by credits that make clear the identity of the sponsor and the relations between the sponsor and the sponsored content. However, credits do not count as part of the advertising permitted under the AVMS Directive, and in order to prevent the credits from effectively becoming extra advertising, they must...