FOREWORD—What this Report
is about
When the Commission published its draft Audiovisual
Media Services (AMS) Directive in December 2005, it was met with
alarm in many quarters, particularly in the United Kingdom.
The Directive sought to amend the existing 'Television
Without Frontiers' (TVWF) Directive, by extending the scope of
the Directive to those new services perceived to be competing
for audiences and revenue with traditional television. This threatened
to introduce burdensome and potentially inappropriate regulation
to what was a thriving new media sector in the United Kingdom,
with very different business models. There were fears that emerging
new media companies may either collapse or relocate outside the
European Union.
Since the original draft, a number of changes have
been made to the text to attempt to tighten the definition of
the services covered to "television-like" services.
Whilst this is an improvement, we are still concerned that there
is not sufficient legal certainty over precisely what these services
are, particularly in a rapidly changing market.
As in other recent single market legislation, the
previously accepted basis of a Country of Origin approach to operating
across 25 (now 27) Member States, which was contained in the original
TVWF Directive, and the original draft AMS Directive, has come
under attack. We maintain our view that the Country of Origin
approach is the best way to go forward and must be defended.
Whilst we understand the concerns of traditional,
"free to air" broadcasters at additional pressures to
revenues from new competitors, we firmly reject the idea that
regulators should act to preserve the market dominance of established
players from new entrants. We are however unconvinced of the need
for any quantitative restrictions on advertising in a market which
is now clearly open to competition.
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