EU to Liberalize Television Advertising

BRUSSELS TO LIBERALIZE TELEVISION ADVERTISING
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Laitner and Tobias Buck]
The European Commission will on Tuesday launch a sweeping plan to liberalize television advertising under the biggest shake-up of European Union broadcasting rules since 1989. For the first time it will let TV producers, advertisers and broadcasters tap into the lucrative world of product placement as well as enjoy greater flexibility on timing commercial breaks. Viviane Reding, the media commissioner leading the review of the “television without frontiers” directive, believes the changes will help broadcasters compete in the new media era. But the revised legislation faces intense criticism both from some of Ms Reding’s fellow commissioners and also new media - which are covered by the directive for the first time and are bridling both at being regulated at all, and at the nature of the new rules, which they say are unclear.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e8753bc8-6b4c-11da-8aee-0000779e2340.html
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