EU Backs Rise In Advertising On Broadcast TV

EU BACKS RISE IN ADVERTISING ON BROADCAST TV
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Anne Jolis anne.jolis@dowjones.com]
The European Union's national governments approved sweeping changes to the bloc's television-broadcasting rules, extending the amount of advertising allowed and allowing product placement in TV shows. Until now, such product placement has been illegal in many EU countries, and that angered producers who saw their U.S. counterparts cash in on the practice. The new regulations also help broadcasters by allowing them to show advertisements more frequently. The legislation sidesteps the issue of how much content produced in the EU is required on TV. EU film and TV companies have lobbied for tough limits on Hollywood imports, but yesterday's overhaul leaves unchanged a 1989 mandate encouraging local-language production. Another area left largely unregulated is the Internet. Web sites, such as Google Inc.'s YouTube, will remain exempt from EU rules, though video-on-demand services will now come under the same regulations as regular television. The omission of Internet regulation is a loss for television broadcasters, who lobbied hard to include the emerging Internet-based audiovisual industry in the new rules. They said that they face increased competition from services such as YouTube and mobile-multimedia companies and that exempting these players from regulation would put broadcasters at a competitive disadvantage.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118004402666113909.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
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