Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-04-Speech-4-035"
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"en.20030904.3.4-035"2
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".
Mr President, I will start by saying that the Television without Frontiers Directive is one of the successes of the European Union and has undoubtedly helped European television. However, we also have to recognise that the television industry in Europe at the present time is not without difficulties. I am thinking of issues like restricted advertising revenues, and a significant number of companies are currently facing financial difficulties.
Therefore, I thank the Commissioner for her commitment to Europe's television. I urge her to heed this report and to come forward as soon as possible with practical proposals to revise the directive.
The industry today is greatly different from 1997, when the Directive was last revised, and barely recognisable from the TV industry of 1989, when the Directive was adopted. In 1989 there were just 47 television channels in the whole of Europe. Today that figure is 2000. TV is an important industry, with turnover estimated at EUR 62 billion per annum. The role of the EU must be to help encourage the industry and in no sense to restrict it.
TV is now facing important technological changes: there is more satellite TV, digital TV, convergence with the Internet and new advertising techniques, such as split-screen advertising. The directive, however, is beginning to creak, and revision cannot be put off indefinitely. Indeed, a thorough review is becoming urgent.
I appreciate the Commission's careful approach and congratulate the Commissioner on her careful and extensive consultation. However, we need to take care: too long a delay in revising the directive will impede progress in the industry. We should not move away from the fundamental principles of the present directive which relies largely on self-regulation and is not too prescriptive. We should no more seek to control what people watch than we would seek to control what books they might wish to buy in a bookshop. Therefore, I am clear that overzealous use of quotas and too detailed definitions would be wrong. Above all, we should only seek to regulate and influence at a European level that which is of transeuropean concern.
However, there are European issues we need to address. For instance, events of major importance need to remain free to air, and there is a case for a short European list of such events. There was a real risk that last year's World Cup would not be freely available in all our countries.
I am as keen as any colleague to encourage European content in television, although primarily that could be helped by the 'MEDIA Plus' Programme. I also urge the Commission to look at ways to ensure that channels like Euronews and Arte flourish and develop. They help create a European television identity and help our citizens to appreciate and understand the European dimension in their lives. Euronews in particular is a very effective means of allowing European and world citizens to get a European perspective on current affairs, rather than an exclusively national or American view.
I would also urge the Commission to find means to protect the diversity of ownership of television and to guard against undue concentration of ownership. Plurality of media ownership is important for democracy.
In this report I touch on two particular issues which may be seen as minor but are important. First, the needs of viewers with sensory impairments: these fellow citizens wish, and have the right, to enjoy television. I hope the Commission will conduct the study called for as soon as possible to enable us to get best practice for subtitling, sign language and audio description in television broadcasts.
Finally, I want to raise the issue of those European citizens – often retirees but not only – who move to a place in the sun. Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and France are indeed wonderful and hospitable countries, but for those people from the north of Europe it is nice to watch television programmes from their own country and even to watch their own country play in a football match. Many people do this by skirting around the law by watching via satellite broadcasters from their own country. They often ignore the terms of their contracts or even use pirate technology. Perhaps that is not a big problem, but, as sensible legislators, we ought to be able to frame sensible laws that allow citizens to lead their lives within the law and not in a grey market."@en1
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