"Broadcasters need advertising and advertisers need broadcasters, but we must also have effective consumer protection. What we actually need is responsible advertising," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "If Europe is to benefit from the less detailed and more flexible advertising rules of the forthcoming Audiovisual Media Services without frontiers Directive, Italy, like all member states, has to respect and comply fully with the EU rules in force."
Independent monitoring revealed that Italian broadcasters do not comply with the directive's quantitative advertising rules, in particular the hourly 12-minute limit for advertising, the rule on 20-minute minimum intervals between advertising breaks and the rule on inserting advertising in films. Italian legislation does not include teleshopping spots in the hourly limit for advertising -- which leads to more advertising than allowed by the directive -- and also does not respect the minimum duration of 15 minutes allowed by the directive for "teleshopping windows" (i.e. teleshopping programs on a generalist TV channel).
Moreover, said the EU in a release, in contrast to the directive, self-promotion -- including advertising by broadcasters for their own programs or products -- is not considered to be advertising under Italian law. This results in programs like news being unduly interrupted and longer advertising breaks, in violation of the directive's rules limiting insertion of advertising. In addition, basic advertising rules of the directive, like those ensuring respect for human dignity and non-discrimination, do not apply to self-promotional messages broadcast on Italian TV.
