EC Expands TV Rules To Cover Mobile Phones

“The European Commission this week set out its plans to update 1989’s Television Without Frontiers Directive, extending the rules to all TV-like services and relaxing the rules of advertising to allow product placements.”
The rules appear to cover all video content — whether these are “linear” services which push content to viewers in the manner of traditional TV, or “non-linear” services such as on-demand films or news, which the viewer pulls from the network.
“The new rules will apply to linear services in a modernised, more flexible form, whereas non-linear ones will be subject only to a basic set of minimum principles, such as the protection of minors, prevention of incitement to racial hatred and the prohibition of surreptitious advertising.”
Under these rules broadcast mobile TV will be restricted to a maximum of 12 minutes of advertising per hour (or 20% of the content) but broadcasters will be able to choose the best moment to insert advertising in programmes…at the moment they have to allow at least 20 minutes between advertising breaks. I think advertising on mobile TV would work better with short ad breaks that are shown more often. People tend to watch mobile TV for short periods of time, and advertisers aren’t going to be happy if someone watches 15 minutes of mobile TV and doesn’t see and ad — conversely, consumers aren’t going to be happy if they happen to check into the mobile TV during one of the six-minute ad breaks…
The EC has also changed the rules to allow European shows to have product placement, but “to prevent surreptitious advertising, consumers will be informed at the start of a programme that product placement is in use”.

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