TV without frontiers, lawmakers in tears

Question: In an age of YouTube, on-demand programming and DIY video, how do you define and regulate television? This is the dilemma that has European legislators, content providers and the UK Government tied in inextricable knots as they attempt to introduce the grandiose sounding Television Without Frontiers (TVWF) directive.

The TVWF regulation as it currently stands will cover traditional broadcasters and set minimum standards for advertising and the protection of minors.  The thinking behind it is that anything that looks like TV should be regulated like television.

But in an era of TV on demand, the EC wants to extend the reach of the legislation to cover "online audio-visual content" which includes Internet based video and other emerging moving visual content. Given that it's becoming increasingly difficult to define what TV is, the EC has proposed that the legislation deserves a more inclusive name — the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.

Detractors from the EC proposals are many, with a variety of conflicting motives. A common thread running through the dissent concerns the haziness of the proposals. Current regulations focus on traditional TV broadcast according to a schedule, also known as linear broadcasting. However, the EC wants to extend the TVWF directive to include new media, or non-linear content, which has ramifications for most Internet content providers, as well as telecommunications and broadband providers.

While the EC sees an update to the Directive as necessary to protect consumers, and as a tool to encourage pan-European content trading, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) sees the update as an attempt to "shoehorn digital content providers into rules designed for traditional broadcasters, undermining high-value, high-tech economic growth when it should be stimulating it".

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, insists that the new rules will be light, and would encourage economic growth rather than stymying it.  "If you have 25 conflicting regulations in 25 countries, you can't take advantage of the internal market. When the new rules are applied, [content providers] can get authorisation in Britain and spread into 25 countries. I see a big chance for European content to travel," she told ZDNet UK last month.

Traditional broadcasters are also on-side, with legislation that they obviously feel will pull the new rash of video content providers into a system structured in a way the old guard are used to. In Europe, traditional broadcasters agree with the EC that the directive should be extended to all media, irrespective of the platform and the technology used. TV broadcasters claim the existing legislation has made it easier to distribute content across borders.

"We welcome the Directive," says Jacques Briquemont, head of public affairs for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an association of national broadcasters. "The regulatory approach has assisted the distribution of TV services across frontiers. It underpins freedom of expression and information flow. The EBU fully supports the extension of the scope of the Directive."

However, as with the Euro and the EU constitution, the UK Government is not exactly on the same page as European lawmakers on the issue of TV regulation. UK minsters have expressed extreme criticism of the proposals, claiming they are: "ill thought-through and ill-conceived", and will inhibit economic growth.