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Audiovisual Media Services Directive |
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(revision of the TV without Frontiers Directive)
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What was it about?
The review of the TV without Frontiers Directive, which became the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, was of great importance to organisations in the media, technology and telecoms sectors across Europe.
Originally devised in 1989, TVWF created a single market in the EU for broadcasting by preventing broadcasters from being subject to double regulation (in country where the content is produced and then again in the country where it is broadcast). Under the directive, content is only regulated in its 'country of origin'.
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How and why was the Directive reviewed?
Although largely viewed as a successful directive, the TVWF Directive was viewed as becoming outdated. The convergence of broadcast and telecoms technologies changed the way that television services are consumed and new services, where programmes are delivered 'on-demand' to consumers.
At the same time, the advertising model that had sustained non-publicly funded television for many decades was increasingly challenged, and changes to the directive were deemed necessary to ensure that broadcasters have access to new funding streams needed to allow quality programming to continue.
As such, the European Commission took the view that the regulatory framework needed to be updated in line with commercial developements and consumer interactions with those.
The European Commission released it’s proposal for a new Directive at the end of 2005. This proposal was debated by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers throughout 2006 before it was agreed at the end of 2007.
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Implementation within UK law
Member states had until 19 December 20090 to implement the Directive into national law. In the UK DCMS put out a consultation on this issue, leading to a policy statement in March 2009 setting out the proposed nature of implementation in the UK.
This announced that a new co-regulatory body would be established to oversee the new regulatory requirements for UK VoD services. Since Spring 2009 the BSG has chaired the Video-on-Demand Editorial Steering Group (VESG). The VESG comprises representatives of the VoD industry and has looked at how the new co-regulatory body should be established.
Work is ongoing on this point and it is anticipated that the new body will be established in H1 2010. In the interim Ofcom is overseeing the regulatory requirements that came into force on 19 December 2009.
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| Other relevant pages on the BSG website
BSG response to DCMS AVMS implementation consultation
BSG response to European Commission cross media rating consultation
www.audiovisualcontent.org
BSG Content Information working group
BSG co-ordinated UK Cross-industry paper on Commission's TVWF Proposal -
April 2005
BSG press release 18/04/06 - Media and telecoms players unite against new AV directive
BSG Co- and Self-Regulatory Forum - November 2005
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Useful external links on this subject
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Issues 
