EU member states need to transpose the new Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive by 19 September 2020.

Cullen International has just published the latest updates of two benchmarks that track the progress in the transposition of the directive across 14 European countries.

The debate in Parliament has started on the draft law in two countries, while in five other countries parliament is expected to start discussing drafts in spring 2020. However, the health emergency in the EU might cause delays.

The latest developments that occurred since the last report include the start of parliament debates in France and Denmark and the publication by the UK  government of its response to the feedback to the consultation (a draft law - where needed - is expected in the coming months). The Italian parliament has started to discuss the so-called draft EU Mandate Law, which gives to government the power to adopt a decree setting a new Digital Media Services Code. However, no information has been disclosed yet on the preparatory work on this legislative decree.

The report covers interesting proposals such as:

• the possibility for multiple-country providers established in the Netherlands (such as Netflix) to apply ratings (according to rules of the Dutch Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media) only for the national catalogue if equivalent systems apply in the other targeted countries;
• the possibility for a new media commission in Ireland to enter into voluntary agreements with non-EU VSPs to specify the extent to which these VSPs agree to comply with new online safety codes and rules;
• the obligation in France for TV channels to ensure that the share between in-house and independent (third-party) productions is 50%-50%;
• the UK government proposal that the range of sanctions for VSPs should mirror those applicable to on-demand service providers (i.e. fines up to max 5% of qualifying revenue).

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