Ahead of the adoption of his opinion on the 'Review of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD)' by the CoR December plenary session, we met CoR rapporteur Jácint Horváth, Member of Nagykanizsa Municipal Council (Hungary) (PES/Hungary).
How do you see the future of local and regional media in the light of the revised directive on audiovisual media services?
Thanks to the new directive on audiovisual services, on the one hand European media service suppliers will be competitive vis-a-vis their competitors world-wide, and on the other, on-line platforms will also be subject to the same rules. The directive does not contain specific provisions for local and regional suppliers of media services, while the Committee of the Regions feels that particular importance should be attached to their existence and role. These local and regional suppliers help enhance European cultural identities, cross-border co-productions within the European Union and creative local innovation. We would therefore stress the need for the new rules not to place small suppliers at a disadvantage compared to the big commercial media operators. The development of on-line platforms should be promoted and supported; they also harbour huge possibilities for local and regional suppliers of media services. Moreover, particular attention should be paid to encouraging responsible media consumption and to doing more to promote education content in the media, particularly in new media. The Committee of the Regions wishes to draw attention to linguistic and cultural minorities who face obstacles when they want access to audiovisual media services in their own language.
To what extent does the directive preserve the pluralism of the media and, therefore, freedom of the press?
The Committee reiterates that the independence of national regulatory authorities, from public authorities, audiovisual players and political parties, is a cornerstone of the European audiovisual media regulation, and is something that Member States are responsible for ensuring at all costs; it is the primary guarantee of the diversity of information and a pluralistic media market at European, national, local and regional level. Against this background, the budgets of these authorities must be made public and contain sufficiently comprehensive and detailed data to correctly reflect the composition of the revenue and expenditure of the independent national authority. The Committee also asks the European Commission to do everything in its power to ensure that the ownership structure of the players in the media world is transparent, so that the public can have a precise idea of who the owners really are. It is necessary to establish an EU level monitoring system that would assess not only the operating methods of regulatory authorities and the legislative framework applicable to them, but also their activities, and would make such assessments accessible to the public. These assessments would provide objective, comparable data on the extent to which different laws in the Member States guarantee the level of independence needed to ensure media pluralism, cultural diversity, consumer protection, the internal market and the promotion of fair competition. The nature and extent of the assessments require account to be taken, when drafting them, of the knowledge, experience and views of the widest possible range of players from government, the media, civil society and academia.
