Call to the members of the European Parliament. No to the advertising flood - No to the advertising liberalization of the European audiovisual sector.

Appel aux élus européens.

Commercial advertising is noxious

The world advertising budget equals several hundreds billions of dollars - from 230 billions according to Ad Barometer to 1000 billions according to Patrick Viveret (Cour des comptes, France) - almost the same as armament. These huge sums are the sign of this industry of commercial propaganda’s major influence power.
In industrialised countries, it is estimated that every adult person is faced with an average 2500 commercial messages each day (Le Monde diplomatique, 2001) without being asked his/her opinion or having a right of reply.
This hammering has direct and harsh consequences on our environment (overconsumption of natural resources and pollution) as well as on public health (the WHO draws a direct link between food industry marketing practices and the world spread of obesity).

Environmental and public health problems won’t be solved as long as citizens are faced to these daily thousands of messages. These use efficient persuasion techniques which push citizens to overconsumption (if the whole world was to consume the way we do, we would need three planets to live).

Television advertising

Commercial advertising is particularly efficient when associated to television : it combines animation and sound and reaches a very large audience. On average, Europeans spend 227 minutes every day in front of their television (« Television 2006 : International Key Facts », agence IP). The European “TWF” directive, which provides for the regulatory framework for the European audiovisual sector, is currently being renegotiated.

The European Parliament will discuss the proposal for a new directive during the plenary of December 12th. The text proposes a massive deregulation for commercial advertising.

For instance, one can read on the European Commission’s website :

“My aim [Mrs V. Reding, European Commissioner] is for Europe’s audiovisual content industry to flourish under one of the most modern and flexible set of rules in the world...(...). Existing rules, which have been made redundant by technological and market developments, must be abolished to take a decisive step towards Audiovisual Media without Frontiers in Europe’s single market”. (...) For scheduled broadcasting, the Commission proposes to remove red tape, make existing rules more flexible for new forms of advertising, and encourage self- and co-regulation. Instead of detailed prescriptions on how often and under which conditions programmes may be interrupted by advertising, the modernised Directive would simplify the existing EU rules.”

If that deregulation was to be voted, viewers from all over Europe would have to cope with more commercial advertising, broadcasted under ever-more intrusive and efficient formats (product placement, virtual advertising, split-screen, interactive advertising, teleshopping). The major issues related to environment, public health and media content would be overwhelmed by an even more powerful commercial flood.

Make your voice heard to the European Parliament and stress the danger inherent to commercial advertising ! Collective cyber action.

We invite you to sign this call, to let it know and to submit it to the Members of the European Parliament.

Support this call :

 Asbl Respire ( www.respire-asbl.be ) [1].
 L’Association Action-Critique Médias (Acrimed - France : www.acrimed.org).
 L’asbl GRAPPE (www.grappebelgique.be).
 Le Réseau Eco-consommation (www.ecoconso.be).
 Resistance à l’Agression Publicitaire - (R.A.P. France : www.antipub.net).
 Action Consommation - France (www.actionconsommation.org).

More details on the TWF directive revision :

Call to the members of the European Parliament

Revision of the “Television without frontiers” directive :

No to the advertising flood -
 No to the advertising liberalization of the European audiovisual sector

The proposal for a new “Television without frontiers” directive, which provides for the audiovisual regulatory framework in the European Union, substantially softens the rules related to advertising. This move seems to us highly prejudicial for several reasons, which bring us to launch this call to our European elected representatives.

Commercial advertising, a noxious influence system

By promoting in a partisan and unilateral way the corporate commercial interests, without that the people that are the target of thousands of these messages every day are being asked their opinion, nor they having a right of reply, commercial advertising imposes to every one its merchant rationale (“to have” rather than “to be”) that is in contradiction to principles of individual freedom and solidarity which are at the heart of the European Union. The persuasion techniques implemented by advertisers have a far-reaching and noxious impact on the people and damageable consequences to their health, to society and to environment.

We underline that commercial advertising has an important share of responsibility regarding to :
  the spread of obesity and diabetes in Europe and in the rest of the world,
  the citizens’ disinformation concerning their buying acts, which form the basis of the economy, and the erosion of their critical sense,
  the aggravation of the over-consumption of our natural resources and the intensification of the pollutions which put us under the threat of ecological disasters of an unknown scale, with potentially very serious consequences.

Commercial advertising, a noxious financing system

It is not a coincidence if the proposed deregulation covers the audiovisual sector. It is indeed one of the historical places where advertising has proliferated, along the press. Commercial advertising has grown in this sector by presenting itself as an easy financing system : money in exchange of time/space. By doing this, the advertisers (the client companies) and their (advertising) agencies get a growing power on broadcasters and on the content that they decide to broadcast - thereby reinforcing their influence.

Public broadcasters that have opened their doors to commercial advertising are increasingly less able to fulfil their public service tasks as commercial advertisements, which promote private interests, are more and more present in their programmes.

We denounce the noxious influence of commercial advertising on :
  the editorial and financial autonomy of audiovisual public services,
  the diversity and the quality of the content,
  the preservation of cultural diversity in the media discourses.

Therefore, we ask the elected representatives :

1) to refuse the spread of commercial advertising in the European audiovisual sector by rejecting any softening of the existing rules and to substantially limit its presence ;

2) that the proposal for the “Television without frontiers” directive reinstates the clear distinction between public and private broadcasters established by the “Protocol on the system of public broadcasting in the Member States” (Protocol of Amsterdam, 1997) and by the “Resolution of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States concerning public service broadcasting” (1999) ;

To make up for the relative economic losses that the restriction of advertising contribution would entail for the audiovisual public services, we ask for the creation of a special fund dedicated to the European audiovisual sector, that would be fuelled by a tax, based on the polluter pays principle, levied on every commercial advertising broadcasted.
This fund would allow to :

  financially help the public broadcasters to put an end to commercial advertisings on their programmes ;
  promote and assist financially the European audiovisual creation ;
  promote and assist financially the development of public programmes focused on media literacy.

The TWF directive proposal as approved by the European Council is the result of an intense lobbyism from the advertising industry and the corporate businesses on the public authorities of the European Union. These do not represent the public and the citizens’ interests.

No to the advertising flood -
No to the advertising liberalization of the European audiovisual sector

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Call MEP TWF

How to proceed ?
Download the call, fill-in your name and personal informations you want to communicate, save the document on your computer and send it in an email to the Members of Parliament you wish to adress.
The list of the Members of the Parliament is available here, (email adresses are mentioned for each MEP).