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It might seem counterintuitive but European commercial television broadcasters are now worried about proposed European Commission rule making that would lift the hourly restriction on ads. Not that many years ago commercial broadcasters were horrified when the 12-minute rule was actually enforced. It’s clear something has changed and we know what it is. Netflix.
Last summer a wealth of changes to the Audiovisual Services Directive (AVMS) were put forward by the European Commission, generally designed to bring more money to European TV broadcasters. The 12-minute rule could be replaced with a percentage allocation of total broadcast time (deep night hours excepted) and the current 30 minute rule for ad break separation within shows could be reduced to 20 minutes. Product placement rules could also be relaxed.
For commercial TV broadcasters that would be a lot of love - in the form of money - shown by the EU executive. Alas, there is hesitation. “Channels have no desire to drown viewers in advertising,” said Association of Commercial Television (ACT) director general Grégoire Polad, quoted by Les Echos (February 14). “it would be against their interest. They ask just more flexibility to ensure a reinvestment in the original European content production.”
For now, the current AVMS rules on advertising time are being enforced, as much as possible. Bulgarian media regulator Council for Electronic Media (CEM) adopted the 12-minute per hour rule only to have major broadcasters, including bTV and TV Nova, prefer selling more time and, sometimes, paying a fine, reported business news portal capital.bg (Feb 10). The issue for Bulgarian broadcasters and media buyers, hardly unique, is steep declines in spot rates, which becomes a vicious cycle.
"Several years of fierce price wars between the two television groups affected the quality of the program content,” said media buyer All Channels Advertising managing director Maria Slavova.
Photojournalism exists, thrives, on emotional capture, a millisecond of desire, strength, weakness, joy, despair. And, too, there is anger. The eye of the photojournalist proclaims, betrays and affirms. And, too, it confesses.
World Press Photo Foundation announced its 60th annual press photo awards this week in Amsterdam. Associated Press (AP) photojournalist Burhan Ozbilici received photo of the year prize, and several others, for capturing the anger of a young man, a murderer. Mr. Ozbilici has worked at the AP Ankara bureau for several years and happened to stop by an art gallery on his way home. He had his camera.
The commended photograph showed Mevlut Altintas, 22-year old off-duty Turkish police officer, dressed conservatively in a suit, white shirt and tie, eyes glaring, mouth agape in rage. The human eye, naturally, fixes on faces. His left hand is extended, finger pointing higher, in declaration. In his right hand is an automatic pistol. To his side, on the floor, is a lifeless body, Russian Federation ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov. Editorial convention against showing assassin and victim prescribed many news outlets from publishing the full frame.
Mr. Ozbilic took about 100 shots at the scene, several submitted to the award jury. While the photo of the raging Mr. Altintas is chilling even more so is a photo taken minutes earlier of Ambassador Karlov with the murderer slightly out of focus looking on. All journalism bears witness in one respect or another.
After Mr. Ozbilic and others in the gallery were removed from the gallery by security officers Mr. Altintas was neutralized after a short exchange of gun fire. “I think that Burhan was incredibly courageous and had extraordinary composure in being able to sort of calm himself down in the middle of the affray and take the commanding pictures that he took,” said jury chairman Stuart Franklin, who voted against the majority of jury members. “It’s a photograph of a murder, the killer and the slain, both seen in the same picture, and morally as problematic to publish as a terrorist beheading,” he wrote in the Guardian (February 13).
Many of the World Press Photo prizes this year went to very dark images. “Photography is a big place, you can do anything, but when you are a journalist you are working in a specific area of photography, working in the world we live in,” said World Press Photo managing director Lars Boering, quoted by the British Journal of Photography (February 13). Jury member Eman Mohammed, a Palestinian photojournalist and US resident, deferred traveling to the Amsterdam announcement fearing difficulties in returning under newly enacted US travel restrictions.
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