Treating Internet Services as Broadcasts Called Peril to British Industry
EU plans to regulate some new media services like traditional broadcasting could hurt British industry and should be jettisoned, a U.K. Lords panel said Mon. Although the proposal has been narrowed in European Parliament (EP) and European Council debate to extend traditional rules only to “TV-like” services on the Internet and elsewhere, if “like services” are regulated in “like manner,” said the Lords’ EU Committee, “We would consider such a move… to be a grave error.”
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Among updates in a proposed audiovisual media services directive for the TV without Frontiers (TVWF) directive is a move to subject to the rules for traditional broadcasters all media broadcasters competing for audiences and ad revenue, the report said. But it’s “neither the role of regulation nor the role of any regulator to protect those with established market position from threats by new market entrants operating under different business models,” the panel said.
The proposal holds particular peril for the U.K., which has the world’s fastest growing online ad market, the panel said. By mid-2006, U.K. broadband uptake was nearly 48%, but British advertisers barely have started capitalizing on the opportunity, it said. Any attempt to change online ad rules must take into account online media services providers’ business models, which are “fundamentally distinct” from traditional TV broadcasters’, MPs said.
Of even more concern is the “apparent dilution” of the country of origin principle. Under the TVWF, broadcasters are bound by the rules of the country where they're based, not where their programs play. Parts of the EU are seeing opposition to that dictum, but committee members said any retreat from it would harm consolidation of the European market. The report also criticized the EC for not carrying out impact assessments on the revised proposals by the EP and Council.
The draft is up for discussion Feb. 21 at an informal Council meeting. Late in 2006, govts. coalesced around a general approach to the legislation but didn’t nail down details pending EP action, said a spokesman for the German Presidency. With the EP giving an opinion seemingly not far from the Council’s, they will try to compromise. Ministers are scheduled to act on the proposal at their May 24-25 formal meeting, the spokesman said.