Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-12-Speech-2-196"
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"en.20061212.40.2-196"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, take the view that it is right to revise the television directive in view of the fact that the real world has changed so much; revision of it is a response to the digitalisation of the media. Since we now have ‘video on demand’, Internet TV, ‘webstreaming’ and whole new platforms, this directive needs to cover all audio-visual media services, and it is for that reason too that we have renamed it.
We are not, however, regulating the Internet as such; nothing produced by private consumers, no private homepages will end up being subject to the revised directive. Traditional broadcasting rules – prior control over content, for example – present no threat to press freedom or to the free expression of opinion. We Greens claim three successes where changes to this directive are concerned, one being the greater opportunities afforded to independent producers, together with a clear definition of what is meant by that term; another is greater accessibility for the disabled; there is also the European right to short reporting, which is all about diversity and the public’s democratic access to information.
There are, though, two major points of criticism to be made. We Greens do not want European television to become more American. I am not, in principle, anti-American, but I do want to promote and maintain European quality television, while all the proponents of the Commission proposal – including Mrs Hieronymi – think that European television’s only chance of a future lies with American-style product placement and ‘single spots’, and that we all have to submit to the constraints of the advertising market. I very definitely do not go along with this view. I want content and advertising to continue to be kept separate rather than being mixed up together. I do not want ‘single spots’ every few minutes, or the six minutes' advertising in the space of 36 minutes that the PPE-DE and the Social Democrats want for all formats; I want to be able to watch a television programme without interruption. The present opportunities for advertising are sufficient.
Perhaps Mr Schulz can tell me – although he is not here – whether he wants, in an episode of the crime series ‘Tatort’ filmed in Munich, the detectives to be driving around in BMWs and drinking something that is recognisably Löwenbräu? Or perhaps Mrs Prets or Mr Poettering can tell us whether they would allow product placement in a television drama in order to promote the sale of Volkswagens, and I call on Chancellor Merkel and Mr Neumann, her minister of state for culture, now that the German Presidency of the Council is about to begin, to go beyond half-hearted resistance to product placement and give a clear indication of their opposition to it.
I have to tell Mrs Hieronymi that I regard her report as politically wrong-headed. Its ban on product placement is superficial, in that it then goes on to allow the Member States to introduce it, so, in some formats, product placement will become a reality in all European countries.
Is that really what you want, ladies and gentlemen? I see this as self-deception; on the one hand product placement is to be allowed, but, on the other, according to the directive, people are not meant to buy the products. That, though, is ridiculous; we are simply conning ourselves in what I regard as a typical sell-out. I urge you to be courageous in voting against product placement and single spots, to defend European quality television, to vote for free production aids, for the Greens’ amendments relate to all of these things. We should take pride in our quality television and it is this area that we should most distance ourselves from the Americans. I would like to thank the other Members and the Commission, too, for their cooperation."@en1
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