The European Parliament, advisory body of the European Union, has voted to include a V chip-like censor device in new televisions, limiting minors’ access to ‘indecent’ materials. The decision may be extended to interactive television and set-top browsers. Hot on the heels of US President Clinton’s foray into the Internet, in which he put his signature to the Telecommunications Reform Bill intended to clean up the Internet, Europe is staging its own debate on how to deal with ‘indecent material’ on new media such as interactive television and on-line services. The entertainment industry converged on Brussels last month as a deeply divided European Parliament voted on how to update ‘Television without frontiers’ directive 89/552/EEC. The initial ballot voted 292-195 in favor of stricter controls on advertising and services such as tele-shopping and to extend broadcast quotas to new services such as video-on-demand. New television sets would include a device called a ‘V chip’ or ‘choice chip’ that enables parents to jam ‘adult’ material. National broadcasting authorities would agree a television program classification system, similar to that which already exists for cinema, to enable viewers to decide in advance which programs it is safe to allow their children to watch. Opposed by the Christian Democrats, the socialists sought to extend the debate to interactive television, tele-shopping and the Internet and demanded stricter rules for new services, advertising and that the number of US programs brought into the continent be limited. But one European Community official pointed out to Reuter that the demand for computer chips to prevent children seeing sex and violence could have an unexpected effect. Euro-MPs seem to have forgotten that the only manufacturers of the so-called V-chips are American, the official said. If you are making a proposal to prevent the Americans having a monopoly and then you are going to give to the American industry this product, this is a contradiction. It is a monopoly, the Commission official declared.
Enhancing viewer choice
The US has already agreed a law saying that television sets with screens 13 or larger should be equipped with chips that can be programmed at home to block specific channels or kinds of program. The vote tightened the 51% quota aimed at increasing television outlets for European-produced films and documentaries by legally effective means, a move that has been strongly backed by the French who view the onset of Hollywood as injurious to their own film industry. This is much stronger wording than in the original 1989 directive, which says that quotas should be enforced where practicable. Carole Tongue, the Socialists’ spokeswoman on culture, said tougher limits would enhance viewer choice, bring economic and cultural benefits, and protect programs like Eastenders. Approval for revisions came despite opposition from those that have most to gain from an unregulated information society. Broadcasting, recording, advertising, publishing and technology industries worried that tougher quotas could hamper new on-line multimedia services. Constructing a fortress Europe is rather a strange way of creating a global (new) media society, the European Association of Advertising Industries said in a statement. A coalition of 40 companies and trade associations wrote to parliamentarians imploring them to avoid the new rules. On the other hand, personalities including French film stars Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu met deputies to try to persuade them to push for tougher limits on the number of Hollywood films and programs shown on Europe’s screens. Members of the European Parliament have suggested that a further tightening of quotas would automatically reduce sex and violence on European television as the majority of such programs originate in the US. European Members of Parliament rejected a number of amendments, including a move to set up an authority to monitor television ownership and advertising, and the implementation of the quota rules in the me
mber states.
