The Consumer and Advertising Regulation in the Television without Frontiers and Audiovisual Media Services Directives

This paper aims to assess the balance between the commercial interests of broadcaster and advertiser and the interests of the viewer, as well as programme makers. The new Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) seeks to clarify and to simplify whilst maintaining the traditional European broadcasting landscape. The recurrent theme of the debate about legislative revision has been based in the vocabulary of consumer choice empowered by technology. The use of this vocabulary then leads to assumptions about the ability of the consumer to make choices. Insofar as those choices existed, they have been limited by developments in the AVMSD and in the broadcasting environment. Despite the claims of the AVMSD about viewer choice, it seems likely that the viewer will have no choice whether to receive commercial communications or not.