EPHA members Eurocare and the European Heart Network (EHN) have issued responses to the Issue Paper for the Audiovisual Conference in Liverpool in September 2005 regarding the Television Without Froniters Directive (TVWF).
The Commission issued a public consultation on the revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive in 2003 and conducted independent studies and expert meetings in focus groups in 2004 and 2005. The various inputs given to the Commission during this process have been summarised in six issue papers. These issue papers are now subject to a public consultation as part of the process preparing for the audiovisual conference in September 2005.
Eurocare’s response focuses on the marketing of alcoholic beverages, especially towards children. The paper identifies several areas of particular concern and list a number of specific recommendations to the Commission, for example:
Product placement: this technique should not be used before 10pm
TV programmes may not be sponsored by companies whose principal activity is manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages
Hourly and daily limits of advertising should be maintained for linear services
Teleshopping of alcoholic beverages should be probibited before 10 pm
For the full text of the response see the attachment below.
EHN’s response highlights the issue of marketing unhealthy food to children. The organisation sees the revision of the TVWF Directive as presenting ’an ideal opportunity to make a contribution to halting and reversing the epidemic of obesity and to prevent avoidable diet-related chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases’. EHN also issues the following four recommendations:
Establish a basic tier of qualitative rules appliccable to all commercial communications regardless of audiovisual media
Prohibit advertising of unhealthy food and drinks to children in Article 16 of the TVWF Directive
Define ’children’s programmes’ appropriately so as to ensure that advertising, sponsorship and product placement will not lead to an increase in exposure to cpommercial communications of unhealthy food and drinks, including brands, to children
Prohibit product placement in programmes that are likely to be viewed by children
For the full text of the response see the attachment below.
