Media News - Thursday, May 29, 2008

CO2 car advert rules threaten press freedom, media giants say

Europe's media giants have attacked proposals to slap environmental cigarette-packaging-style 'health warnings' on car advertising in newspapers and magazine. The European Publishers' Council, which represents major publishers and broadcasters across the continent, have warned that such advertising regulations, if adopted, threaten the freedom of the press. ‘Advertising is vital to maintaining a vibrant, independent and diverse media landscape in Europe and car advertising accounts for up to 20 percent of advertising revenues,’ EPC chairperson Francisco Pinto Balsemao said in a statement. The media owners are worried that environment commissioner Stavros Dimas is set to announce proposals that would require all car adverts in newspapers and magazines, and possibly on TV and radio to include CO2 'health warnings', so called due to the concept's similarity to the health warnings on packages of cigarettes. If adopted, says the EPC, the health warnings will lead to car companies taking their advertising elsewhere – to sporting events or concerts, as cigarette companies did when print advertising restrictions were imposed on the tobacco industry in the 1990s. Currently under discussion, the new rules are expected to be unveiled by the commission by the end of the month. The commission has opted to move on car advertising following almost a decade in which manufacturers have widely flouted the 1999 directive, which required that adverts include information that is ‘easily legible and no less pronounced than the main part of the advertising message’ and ‘easily understood, even when read briefly.’ But in many cases the environmental information stretches only a few millimetres high and is barely legible. (EU Observer)

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