PRIVATE MEDIA OUTLETS HAVE SUBMITTED THEIR COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT BILL REGARDING CZECH TELEVISION AND CZECH RADIO

15. 5. 2026 Private media outlets are criticising the draft Public Service Media Act. They object to online advertising and the lack of regulatory safeguards.

THE ADVERTISING BUSINESS OF LOTTERIES AND BETTING IS UNDER THREAT

9. 6. 2025 If an amendment is passed in the final reading of the bill on addictive substances, it will mean major restrictions on advertising by lottery and betting companies.

TV SERVICES AND VOD MUST BECOME MORE ACCESSIBLE TO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES FROM JULY

30. 5. 2025 By the end of next month, specifically by 28 June, pay-TV operators and video-on-demand services must significantly improve access to their content. They must accommodate both hearing and visually impaired users.

THE CZECH REPUBLIC IS TO INCORPORATE THE EMFA MEDIA FREEDOM LAW. WHAT WILL IT BRING?

29. 5. 2025 What will the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) bring? A discussion at the Journalists' Forum examined what the new legislation will bring.

COMMERCIAL TV COMPANIES DEMAND WITHDRAWAL OF MAJOR MEDIA AMENDMENT

19. 9. 2023 The commercial television groups Nova, Prima and Óčko show their displeasure with not being invited to discuss the proposal to increase the fees for ČT (Czech Television).

EUROPEAN SALES HOUSES URGE LEGISLATORS TO STRIKE THE RIGHT BALANCE IN THE FINAL AVMS DIRECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS

26. 3. 2018 The European Commission’s proposal for a revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive in May 2016 promised to create a fairer environment for all players, to ensure adequate protection for consumers, especially children, to sustain the production of original European content and to introduce more flexibility on the advertising rules for broadcasters. The original proposal was a step in the right direction and was welcomed as such by European sales houses and broadcasters, in particular the flexibility on advertising time as well as the simplification and liberalisation of the rules on sponsorship and product placement. As the trilogue negotiations come to a conclusion, egta members would like to urge decision-makers to keep those initial objectives in mind when agreeing on the final balance of the text. Broadcasters are increasingly concerned at the potential erosion of what was a modest evolution of the rules in the first place. Since the publication of the initial proposal, online advertising sales have been growing steadily and in 2016 became the main media for advertisements on a pan-European level, with €36.8 billion in revenue, surpassing TV advertising (€31.4 billion)1. As things stand, apart from the moderate liberalisation of the advertising time, there will be little to no discernible flexibility in the qualitative advertising rules, the articles on sponsorship and product placement and the other linear specific advertising provisions. We strongly urge the Parliament, Member States and the Commission to take the opportunity of the final trilogue meetings to ensure that this revision process delivers on its original objectives of a competitive, creative and safe European audiovisual landscape. This could be achieved by introducing measures safeguarding broadcasters’ signal integrity, simplifying the rules on product placement and sponsorship as per the Commission proposal, liberalising isolated adverting spots in article 19.2 and ensuring that no further measures adversely impact broadcasters’ current revenue streams. To secure a robust level of consumer protection, a fair environment for business and competition with other actors, all content providers, including video sharing platforms, should also adhere to the basic advertising principles in articles 9, 10 and 11. In a fast-changing market place where all content providers, both online and offline, linear and non-linear, are competing for audience and advertising revenues, qualitative prescriptions should be simplified and harmonised in order to secure a more equal environment, so that the financing of quality content shall be sustainable in the longer term. As noted throughout the studies that informed the Commission’s impact assessment, Europeans have never been presented with more choice of audiovisual content. It is in this context that broadcasters need to secure future proof revenue streams that will allow them to continue offering the content that viewers expect and are interested in. Therefore, the European audiovisual sector needs a regulatory environment that reflects the current market place, provides proportionate and balanced rules and will remain relevant as technological developments occur. We strongly believe that simplification and legal certainty in the AVMSD will match those objectives. egta is the association representing television and radio sales houses that market the advertising space of both private and public television and radio stations throughout Europe and beyond. egta counts 140 members across 40 countries. www.egta.com 1 The EU online advertising market – Update 2017, European Audiovisual Observatory, 2017.

THE MEDIA MARKET SUPPORTS THE NEW AMENDMENT TO THE PHARMACEUTICALS ACT WHICH GOVERNS ADVERTISING

23. 1. 2018 Media operators and advertising agencies from professional associations support the new amendment to the Pharmaceuticals Act, which will be voted on at the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Friday and which proposes to repeal the latest amendment to the Act on Regulation of Advertising. In the last year, the Act on Regulation of Advertising was amended as a rider to the Pharmaceuticals Act. The responsibility for the compliance of advertising content with the law was extended to the broadcasters and it concerns selected types of product – medicinal products for human use, food supplements and foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses and for infant nutrition. Until then, it had only been the subjects, which had helped create the advertising content, who had been responsible for the compliance of advertising of such products with the law, as is the case with other types of products. The amendment seeks to return to the original form of the Act on Regulation of Advertising. The problematic amendment, which introduced the joint liability of the disseminator of advertising for the compliance of the advertising content (medicinal products for human use, food supplements and foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses and for infant nutrition) with the law, has been effective since April 2017. The amendment has not contributed to increasing the level of consumer protection. Instead, it has proved to be easily misused in the competitive fight among the producers of the products concerned. In the spring of last year, the entire media sector warned that extending the responsibility for the compliance of advertising content with the law to the disseminator of advertising could not contribute to increasing the level of consumer protection. The reason for this is that the advertisers do not have any professional qualification or legal tools to gather the necessary background information that would help them professionally assess, for instance, whether the advertised product actually strengthens one’s immune system or not.