THE REGULATION OF THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN THE EUROPEAN AND HUNGARIAN MEDIA LAW

Abstract

In the 2007/65 Directive of audiovisual media services (in codified version 2010/13 EU directive: AVMSD) a new media policy of the European Union appeared. One of the main aims of the regime was to provide a more liberal and flexible legislation for advertisements and other similar commercial messages. Accordingly, the burdens on the publication of commercials have eased, new ways and forms of publication have been introduced, and it has become possible to place open commercial contents simultaniously with the edited contents or programmes, too. A popular and widespread commercial communication form has been introduced, called product placement. In contrast to other commercial publications, in this case, commercial content appears embedded in the plot of the programme. The viewers directly meet the commercial content when seeing the programme, they have no opportunity to avoid the content. This study wishes to discuss what kind of mediapolitical debates preceded the introduction of product placement: the arguments for and against will be detailed. It will also be discussed, what kind of concept appears in the Directive and what minimum rules the Union has. As the formerly mentioned form of communication was earlier regarded surreptitious by the media law, the demarcation criteria in particular will also be discussed. This study aims at the presentation of the member states’ reactions to this new institution, how the community provisions have been implemented, whether the member states have created and applied more rigorous and detailed regulations, in case they have, what kind of unique solutions they have applied. Accordingly, both the union regulations and the regulations of the particular member states concerning the publication of product placement will be analysed in order to present their specific solutions.