Peering Into Rule Makers Mirror On The Wall Media Industries See Ugly, Step-Sisters

Wednesday the European Parliament’s (EP) Culture and Education Committee takes up what will be the final round of debate on Europe’s new media rules before traveling to the entire body. That the revision agenda for the Television Without Frontiers Directive – renamed Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) – has been in the hearts and hands of the culture-vultures virtually ensures outcomes unpopular with those waking up to find the future upon them.

Newspaper publishers have been adept at keeping any hint of European rule making away from their cash-flow. Government subsidies and huge tax advantages help those profit margins and keep the publishing sector rich, conservative and, moreover, increasingly distant from markets and consumers. Why, indeed, pay too much attention to the little people when they mean nothing to the bottom line?

ftm background

Lines On the Sandy Brussels Beach
Immediate response was rather muted to EC Media Commissioner Vivaine Reding proposed revisions to the TV Without Frontiers Directive. That was six months ago. EURO-MEI and British government, regulator and media business are firmly opposed...for different reasons.

Media Sighs Relief At Services Directive Exclusion
The latest draft passed the European Parliament after amendments ripped out the hotly contested “country of origin” principle. The audiovisual sector was excluded – along with gambling and public healthcare. Europe’s media organizations breathed a palpable sigh of relief.

Convergence is Here!!
EC media commissioner Viviane Reding spells out a delicate vision for moving forward, and every other direction.

EC Audiovisual Conference Debates New Media Rules
The European Union’s main policy experts, regulators, broadcasters, legislators along with industry and employees associations will gather in Liverpool to “facilitate expert discussion of the revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive.”

Goodbye to the Services Directive
No need to wind-up about country of origin or cultural exclusions for audiovisual services. The Bolkestein Directive on services is DAB (No, not that one. Dead And Buried)

The European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA) issued a warning yesterday (read here) urging Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to turn the tide. Television already takes away too much of our money: don’t give them product placement money, too.

Arguments about the blurring of lines between editorial and advertising on television are particularly specious coming from newspaper publishers who invented publia-reportage, full-page ads disguised as features.

Newspaper publishers also want to be spared rule-making that might just reflect consumer realities. Their web-sites, they say, should be exempt from rules recognizing the internet content platform as, well, media. Newspaper websites are not, like, websites. Consumers, of course, see websites as websites; some are just better. And, not to forget, the internet is attracting a lot of advertising.

The new AVMS Directive has attracted considerable attention. As the proposals have move from draft to draft and now onto real votes, entrenched media industries would like nothing more than going back to the good old days…for newspapers, that pre-TV. For them all, it’s pre-internet. And now, the horrors never cease, Europe’s Commissioner for media supports mobile TV!

Yes, Mrs Vivaine Reding, European Commissioner for Media and the Information Society, defies at every turn the desires of traditional media. That consumers, too, have defied traditional media seems largely ignored. If only the EC can turn back that clock…

At the CeBIT technology fun-fest Mrs Reding went so far as speaking in favor of a single digital media technology platform, largely for mobile TV, clearly an unpopular position.

“The industry should agree on one single standard,” she suggested. “I believe this should be the DVB-H family of standards.”

Sellers of other standards and platforms, as well as those hoping to keep digital media off in the nether-future, were horrified. Particularly horrified is the consortium formed to promote the DAB/Eurika 147 European broadcast standard. It’s so undiplomatic to state the obvious. DAB is yesterdays news.

Of course, she’s right. A decision on standards and platforms need to be made before all the various parts in the digital equation fit together. And somebody needs to make a decision, something Mrs Reding has no problem with.

Digital radio and TV have floundered – worldwide – because nobody can come to a decision on standards and platforms. For radio, at least, the UK has taken the bold step of embracing one standard – DAB/Eurika 147 – and VOILA! There are digital radio channels, digital receivers and, yes, consumers are happy.

But the technology has moved on. DVB-H – dependent on spectrum unavailable until all those stone-age analogue TV and radio stations are shut off – is elegant and so 21st century.

Mrs Reding, who has molded the proposed AVMS Directive – seems to have a clear view of media technologies future. To bring all the digital benefits to consumers, as well as content providers, standards and platform issues need a decision. Without that decision – studied and complete – from rule makers consumers will make it themselves.

Further Complicated: Advertising, Children and Television NEW

Peering Into Rule Makers Mirror On The Wall Media Industries See Ugly, Step-Sisters

Media industry groups are up in arms over the encroaching future. It’s bad enough that media consumers have been enticed by every digital evil. Now – horror of horrors – the rule makers won’t stop reality.