EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD, Directive 2010/13/EU as amended by Directive 2018/1808 and Directive (EU) 2023/2586)

Article 10 sets sponsorship rules: identifiability of sponsorship, no influence on content/editorial responsibility, no direct encouragement of purchase/rental of goods/services, prohibition of sponsorship by undertakings whose principal activity is manufacture/sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products and prescription medicines, and restrictions for children's programmes / news / current-affairs.

• Sponsorship contracts and disclosures demonstrating Article 10 identifiability and editorial-independence
• Records that no sponsorship from tobacco / prescription-medicine manufacturers is accepted

• Sponsorship credits that do not clearly identify the sponsor
• Sponsorship of news or current-affairs programming

Article 11 permits product placement in audiovisual media services subject to conditions: prohibition in news/current-affairs / consumer-affairs / religious / children's programmes; no influence on content or editorial independence; no direct encouragement of purchase; no undue prominence; viewer information (identifying signal at beginning, end and after advertising breaks); prohibition of product placement of tobacco products / e-cigarettes and prescription medicines.

• Identifying-signal practice (P symbol or equivalent) at beginning, end and after advertising breaks
• Lists of programmes excluded from product placement (news/current-affairs/children's/religious/consumer-affairs)

• Product placement in excluded programme categories
• No identifying signal disclosed to viewers

Article 22 imposes specific criteria on television advertising and teleshopping for alcoholic beverages: not aimed at minors, no association of alcohol with enhanced physical performance / driving / social or sexual success / health benefits / conflict resolution, no encouragement of immoderate consumption / negative portrayal of abstinence or moderation, no emphasis on high alcoholic content.

• Pre-broadcast review records of alcohol advertising against Article 22 criteria
• Refused/edited records for non-compliant submissions

• Alcohol advertising emphasising performance/driving/social success or aimed at minors

Article 9 sets out general principles applicable to all audiovisual commercial communications: identifiability (clearly recognisable), prohibition of surreptitious advertising and subliminal techniques, prohibition of advertising for cigarettes/tobacco products and electronic cigarettes/refill containers, restrictions on advertising of alcoholic beverages and medicinal products available only on prescription, prohibition of prejudicing human dignity or including discriminatory content, prohibition of encouraging behaviour prejudicial to health or safety or grossly to the protection of the environment, and the principle that audiovisual commercial communications for alcoholic beverages and HFSS foods (high in salt, sugars, fat, saturated fats and trans-fatty acids) in childrens programmes must comply with codes of conduct (Article 4a).

• Advertising-acceptance policy aligned to Article 9
• Records of refused or restricted advertisements (tobacco/e-cigarettes/prescription medicines/discriminatory content)
• Children-targeted HFSS and alcohol code-of-conduct adherence

• Surreptitious or subliminal advertising in the entity's audiovisual commercial communications
• Advertising acceptance criteria that ignore Article 9(1) prohibitions

Article 6(1) requires Member States to ensure by appropriate means that audiovisual media services provided by media service providers under their jurisdiction do not contain any (a) incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of a group based on any of the grounds referred to in Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights or (b) public provocation to commit a terrorist offence as set out in Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2017/541. Article 6(2) provides that the measures taken for compliance shall be necessary and proportionate and respect the rights and observe the principles set out in the Charter.

• Editorial-policy and complaint-handling procedure addressing incitement to violence/hatred and terrorist content
• Reporting metrics to the national regulator on Article 6 compliance

• No documented editorial policy implementing Article 6
• Content-moderation processes that do not align to the Charter Article 21 grounds or to the Directive (EU) 2017/541 terrorist-offence list

Article 6a requires Member States to take appropriate measures to ensure that audiovisual media services provided by media service providers under their jurisdiction which may impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors are only made available in such a way as to ensure that minors will not normally hear or see them. The most harmful content (such as gratuitous violence and pornography) is to be subject to the strictest measures. Personal data of minors collected or otherwise generated by media service providers pursuant to Article 6a(2) cannot be processed for commercial purposes (direct marketing, profiling, behaviourally targeted advertising). Article 6a(3) requires audiovisual media services providers to provide sufficient information to viewers about content which may impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, using a system describing the potentially

• Content-classification system describing the potentially harmful nature of content (descriptors / age ratings)
• Access-control measures (PIN, time-of-day scheduling, age gating) for content which may impair the development of minors
• Data-protection record demonstrating that minors' personal data collected under Article 6a(2) is not processed for commercial purposes

• No content-descriptor system on an on-demand catalogue
• Targeted advertising or behavioural profiling using minors' personal data generated through age-verification or PIN systems (prohibited by Article 6a(2))

Article 7 requires Member States to ensure, without undue delay, that services provided by media service providers under their jurisdiction are continuously and progressively made more accessible to persons with disabilities through proportionate measures. Action plans are to be drawn up and submitted to the Commission. Article 7 also requires that emergency information made available to the public through audiovisual media services, including public communications and announcements in natural-disaster situations, be provided in a manner accessible to persons with disabilities.

• AVMSD Article 7 accessibility action plan covering the entity's services
• Accessibility metrics (proportion of catalogue with subtitles/audio description/sign language/easy-to-understand information)
• Emergency-information accessibility procedure

• No Article 7 accessibility plan
• Emergency-information channels that are not accessible to persons with disabilities

Article 7a permits Member States to take measures to ensure the appropriate prominence of audiovisual media services of general interest (a Member State option not a binding obligation).

• Documented compliance with any Article 7a national prominence rules applicable to the entity's electronic programme guide or service interface

• EPG / interface design that ignores applicable national Article 7a prominence rules

Article 7b requires Member States to take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure that audiovisual media services provided by media service providers are not overlaid for commercial purposes or modified without the explicit consent of those providers.

• Contracts with distributors / platforms documenting consent or refusal of overlays and modifications
• Detection process for unauthorised overlays / modifications

• Third-party overlays on the entity's audiovisual signal without explicit consent

Article 8 requires Member States to ensure that media service providers do not transmit cinematographic works outside periods agreed with the rights holders.

• Rights-clearance records for cinematographic works against agreed release windows

• Transmission outside agreed release windows

Article 1 supplies the definitions framing the Directive: 'audiovisual media service', 'media service provider', 'audiovisual media service on demand' (non-linear), 'television broadcasting' (linear), 'broadcaster', 'European works', 'audiovisual commercial communication', 'sponsorship', 'product placement', and (since the 2018 amendment) 'video-sharing platform service' and 'video-sharing platform provider'. The Directive applies only to services whose principal purpose, or a dissociable section, is the provision of programmes or, for VSPs, of user-generated videos to the general public.

• Definitions glossary aligning the entity's services to the AVMSD service-category taxonomy (linear / non-linear / VSP)

• Treating a service as outside AVMSD scope without a documented Article 1 categorisation
• Conflating 'video-sharing platform service' with 'on-line platform' under the DSA (different scope tests)

Article 2 establishes the country-of-origin principle. Each Member State ensures that all audiovisual media services transmitted by media service providers under its jurisdiction comply with that Member State's law applicable to audiovisual media services intended for the public in the Member State concerned. Jurisdiction is established by primary criteria (head-office and editorial-decision location) and a cascade of secondary criteria; the 2018 amendment refined and codified these tests.

• Documented Article 2 jurisdiction analysis for the media service (head-office / editorial-decisions location / cascade tests)
• Notification by the entity to the regulator of its country-of-origin status

• Operating a media service in the EU without a documented Article 2 jurisdiction determination
• Assuming the country-of-origin principle without verifying the cascade tests

Article 13 requires Member States to ensure that on-demand audiovisual media service providers secure at least a 30% share of European works in their catalogues and ensure prominence of those works. Article 13(2)-(4) allows Member States to impose financial obligations on providers (direct investment or levy) for European works, including on providers established in other Member States but targeting their audience (country-of-destination basis). Article 13(6) exempts low-turnover and low-audience providers.

• Catalogue analytics showing the proportion of European works (at least 30%) and the prominence measures applied
• Compliance reporting to the regulator on Article 13 quota and any financial-contribution obligation

• On-demand catalogue with European-works share below 30% and no documented exemption
• No prominence measures applied to European works in the catalogue UI

Article 14 allows each Member State to draw up a list of events considered to be of major importance for society which are not, by exclusive coverage on pay-TV, deprived of a substantial proportion of the public. Article 14(2)-(3) provide the country-of-destination mutual-recognition mechanism.

• List of Article 14 major-importance events relevant to the entity's broadcast territory and compliance approach

• Exclusive pay-TV broadcasting of an Article 14 major-importance event without the safeguards required by the country of destination

Article 15 ensures that for the purpose of short news reports, broadcasters established in the Union have access on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis to events of high interest to the public which are transmitted on an exclusive basis by a broadcaster under their jurisdiction.

• Article 15 short-news-reports access policy and processed requests

• Denial of short-news-report access on a non-FRAND basis

Article 16 requires Member States to ensure, where practicable and by appropriate means, that broadcasters reserve for European works a majority proportion of their transmission time, excluding news/sports/games/advertising/teletext/teleshopping.

• Annual transmission-time analytics demonstrating majority European-works share

• Schedules with European-works share materially below the Article 16 majority

Article 17 requires Member States to ensure, where practicable and by appropriate means, that broadcasters reserve at least 10% of their transmission time (excluding news/sports/games/advertising/teletext/teleshopping) or at least 10% of their programming budget for European works created by independent producers, and that a substantial proportion is reserved for recent works (works transmitted within five years of their production).

• Annual schedule + budget analytics demonstrating the Article 17 10% independent-producers proportion (with substantial recent-works share)

• No documented independent-producers proportion analysis

Article 18 prohibits the inclusion in linear television broadcasts of programmes which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular programmes that involve pornography or gratuitous violence. Other potentially harmful programmes must be subject to scheduling/encryption measures so that minors will not normally hear or see them. (For on-demand and VSPs, the equivalent rule sits in Articles 6a and 28b.)

• Scheduling and encryption measures applied to potentially harmful linear programming

• Linear broadcast of programmes that seriously impair the development of minors
• Potentially harmful programming aired in watershed periods without appropriate measures

Article 19 requires television advertising and teleshopping to be readily recognisable and distinguishable from editorial content. Article 20 governs the insertion of advertising and teleshopping spots in audiovisual works (films/news/childrens programmes - one interruption per scheduled period of at least 30 minutes), preserves the integrity of the programme, and prohibits insertion in transmissions of religious services. Article 23 caps the proportion of television advertising spots and teleshopping spots to 20% of the daily period 06:00-18:00 and 20% of 18:00-24:00 (the 2018 amendment moved from per-hour to daily windows).

• Daily-window advertising-volume analytics demonstrating Article 23 compliance (<=20% 06:00-18:00 and <=20% 18:00-24:00)
• Insertion records confirming Article 20 thresholds (one interruption per 30-minute period for films/news/childrens)

• Advertising volume exceeding 20% in either daily window
• Insertion of advertising during a religious service

Article 3 obliges Member States to ensure freedom of reception and not to restrict retransmissions on their territory of audiovisual media services from other Member States, except in narrowly defined circumstances (incitement to violence/hatred, public security including national security and defence, public health) and only following a notification procedure to the Commission and the Member State of jurisdiction.

• Internal note on the entity's reliance on cross-border free reception
• Documentation of any Article 3 derogation procedure invoked or received

• Imposing platform-level geo-blocking of EU services without Article 3 grounds

Article 4(1) allows Member States to require media service providers under their jurisdiction to comply with more detailed or stricter rules in the fields coordinated by the Directive, provided they comply with Union law. Article 4(2)-(6) provide a circumvention procedure where a provider establishes itself in another Member State to circumvent stricter rules of the receiving Member State.

• Map of the stricter national AVMSD rules that apply to the entity in each Member State of service
• Documentation of any Article 4 circumvention investigation

• Treating the country-of-origin minimum as the only applicable AVMSD standard, ignoring stricter local rules

Article 4a (added by the 2018 amendment) encourages Member States to facilitate the use of co-regulation and the fostering of self-regulation through codes of conduct adopted at national level in the fields coordinated by the Directive, addressing in particular the exposure of children to inappropriate audiovisual commercial communications (notably for foods/beverages high in salt, sugars, fat, saturated fats and trans-fatty acids - HFSS, and for alcoholic beverages).

• Documented adherence (or non-adherence) to applicable national co-regulatory codes of conduct, in particular on children-targeted HFSS and alcohol advertising

• Children-targeted HFSS or alcohol advertising activity without reference to any applicable Article 4a national code

Article 5 requires media service providers under the jurisdiction of a Member State to make easily, directly and permanently accessible to the recipients of a service their name, geographical address, contact details (including electronic mail / website), the Member State having jurisdiction and the competent regulatory authority.

• Article 5 transparency page or imprint published by the service (provider name + address + email + jurisdiction + regulator)

• Imprint missing the competent regulatory authority or the Member State of jurisdiction

Article 30 requires Member States to designate one or more national regulatory authorities/bodies (NRAs), to ensure their legal distinctness from government and their functional independence, to confer powers / resources / financial autonomy on them, and to ensure their decisions are subject to effective judicial review.

• Identification of the competent Article 30 NRA for the entity's services
• Records of engagement with the NRA (consultations, complaints, decisions)

• Engagement only with executive/government bodies rather than the independent Article 30 NRA

Article 30a requires Member States to ensure that NRAs take appropriate measures to provide each other and the Commission with the information necessary for the application of the Directive, in particular with regard to the country-of-origin jurisdiction (Article 2), the circumvention procedure (Article 4) and the VSP regime (Articles 28a-28b).

• Documentation of any Article 30a cooperation procedures the entity has participated in

Article 30b formally establishes the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA), composed of representatives of the NRAs. ERGA provides technical expertise to the Commission, exchanges experience and best practice, cooperates with stakeholders, and provides opinions on Article 2 and 4 cross-border cases.

• Documentation of any ERGA cross-border opinion or report relevant to the entity's services

Article 33a (added by the 2018 amendment) requires Member States to promote and take measures for the development of media-literacy skills. Member States are to report to the Commission every three years on the implementation of Article 33a. Media service providers and VSPs are encouraged to provide media-literacy tools and information to users.

• Media-literacy tools and information made available by the entity to its users (especially under Article 28b(1)(j) for VSPs)

• No media-literacy tools or information published by a VSP

Article 28 obliges Member States to ensure that any natural or legal person whose legitimate interests, in particular reputation and good name, have been damaged by an assertion of incorrect facts in a television programme has a right of reply or equivalent remedies, available to natural and legal persons in all Member States.

• Documented right-of-reply procedure including timelines (Article 28 reasonable time), broadcast format and complaints log

• No right-of-reply procedure or untimely handling of requests

Article 28a (added by the 2018 amendment) establishes the jurisdiction tests for video-sharing platform providers (VSPs). A VSP is under the jurisdiction of a Member State where (a) it is established in that Member State; (b) its parent / subsidiary / group undertaking is established there (with cascade tests); or (c) failing the foregoing, where the VSP commenced or carries on its activities first. Article 28a(2)-(5) provide notifications to the Commission and inclusion in a public VSP register.

• Documented Article 28a jurisdiction determination for the entity's video-sharing platform service
• Notification to the regulator of the entity's VSP status (entry on the public register)

• Operating a VSP in the EU without a documented Article 28a jurisdiction determination
• Not appearing on the relevant national VSP register

Article 28b imposes appropriate measures on VSPs to protect: (a) minors from content which may impair their development; (b) the general public from content containing incitement to violence/hatred and content the dissemination of which is a criminal offence under EU law (terrorist content per Directive (EU) 2017/541, child sexual abuse material per Directive 2011/93/EU, and racism/xenophobia per Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA); and (c) the general public from audiovisual commercial communications. Specific appropriate measures include: terms and conditions; mechanisms for users to report content; age-verification systems for minor-protection content; parental-control systems for minor-protection content; transparent and user-friendly procedures for handling complaints; media-literacy measures; rating systems for user-uploaded videos. Article 28b(3) prohibits the processing of p

• VSP terms and conditions implementing the Article 28b(1) protection categories
• Notice-and-action mechanism (Article 28b(3)(d)) including statement-of-reasons
• Age-verification system for content which may impair minors
• Parental-control system for content which may impair minors
• Media-literacy tools / measures available to users
• Out-of-court dispute settlement procedure (Article 28b(6))
• Demonstration that minors' personal data is not processed for commercial purposes

• No notice-and-action mechanism for AVMSD-covered content categories on a VSP
• Age-verification or parental-control systems whose data flows feed targeted advertising of minors (prohibited)
• No out-of-court dispute settlement procedure published
• VSP T&Cs that do not align to the Article 28b(1) protection categories