On 9 January, the European Commission (EC) published a report on the application of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), which was revised in 2018, for the period 2019-2022.

In detail, the report focuses on the main changes brought about by the revised directive, and looks at a wide range of areas covered by it, including the scope of application, the country-of-origin principle, the protection of minors, accessibility, signal integrity, audiovisual commercial communications, the rules on video-sharing platforms and the independence of media regulators, among others.

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Notably, the report bills the AVMSD as “an essential instrument to harmonise audiovisual rules throughout the EU and govern the Union-wide coordination of national legislation for all audiovisual media”, adding that the 2018 revision “brought some significant innovations and has proven useful for addressing developments in the audiovisual market, such as the growing importance of digital services”.

Although the EC indicates that the delay in the transposition and implementation of the AVMSD did not allow for “an exhaustive analysis of the effect on the new legal framework”, the report draws some interesting conclusions.

The first finding shows that, “as regards the definitions and the material scope of application of the measures, most member states did not encounter significant issues”. The main obstacles mostly concerned “the application of certain rules to on-demand service providers and the classification of certain players as video-sharing platform providers”.

Next, the report reaffirms the validity and relevance of the “country of origin” principle for audiovisual media services established in the EU, along with the possible derogations from it.

Besides this, the protection of minors has also been strengthened for on-demand services. The new requirement on content information prompted member states to establish “new systems to describe the potentially harmful nature of content”, which are “mainly based on visual symbols and acoustic warnings indicating the types of violent content concerned”. In addition, most member states did not put in place any new monitoring or enforcement initiatives.

Meanwhile, the overall accessibility of on-demand content has improved. In particular, approximately half the member states have “set specific requirements for on-demand audiovisual media services”, and accessibility action plans have been developed in several member states. Most of the issues encountered during the implementation of the accessibility measures were of a financial and technical nature, and were on the service providers’ side.

In terms of signal-integrity measures, no issues or infringement were reported. Moreover, most of the member states provided “examples of infringements or complaints linked to audiovisual commercial communications”, with “most of the reported cases pertaining to recognisability and prohibition of surreptitious audiovisual commercial communications, in addition to product placement rules”. The report adds that some member states referred to their national legislation on audiovisual commercial communications, thus “going beyond the requirements and scope of the revised AVMSD”.

To date, the revised rules related to video-sharing platforms “have been transposed verbatim into national legislation by almost all member states”. Zooming in on the measures aimed at protecting minors from harmful content, the report points out that “only a few member states had introduced more detailed or stricter measures” and “relatively few were able to report on the application of the measures”. At the moment, specific codes of conduct are being envisaged in some member states.

Finally, member states did not highlight any “major issues regarding the independence, transparency or impartiality of their national regulatory authorities or bodies”, although a significant number of them expressed “concern” and identified “challenges” related to “the level of financial and human resources at the disposal of these authorities”.

The full document can be accessed here.