BRUSSELS, 16 May 2018 - ACT together with national associations and commercial radios shared their main concerns with trilogue negotiators on must offer provisions - electronic communications code.
Ahead of the next trilogue meeting on Electronic Communications Code, we wanted to kindly draw your attention on the provisions adopted by the European Parliament (Art 106.1) suggesting […] “Member States may additionally impose reasonable must-offer” entitlements, in respect of specified radio and television broadcast channels of general interest, to the undertakings subject to must carry obligations under their jurisdiction”, which we would recommend to oppose.
When it comes to must-carry provisions, commercial broadcasters and radios agree with the European Commission’s and Council’s approach that there is no need to change them at EU level. We believe they should be left to the discretion of Member States who should be able to decide which service is worthy of greater findability (for example commercially funded new service or publicly financed entertainment channel).
When it comes to newly suggested must-offer provisions by the European Parliament, commercial broadcasters and radios oppose them due to the following reasons:
Association of Commercial Television in Europe with Bulgarian, Czech, Romanian, British, Italian, Spanish and German national associations representing commercial television and Association of European Commercial Radios