Those who argue that the proposed extension of the European Commission’s Television Without Frontiers Directive to all audi-visual media is inappropriate and unnecessary - mainly the UK - put forward the argument that self- and co-regulatory mechanisms would be more appropriate. Therefore The Commission commissed a study on “Co-Regulation Measures in the Media Sector” from the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, Hamburg, Germany, and the Institute of European Media Law, Saarbr�cken, Germany. The study has just been published and can be accessed here. The 175-page report has two sections specifically focused on the UK, covering respectively protection of minors in mobile services and advertising regulation in broadcasting.

In a press release on the report, the authors state: “As regards the findings of the impact assessment which relates to the achievement of the pub-lic policy goals protection of minors and protection of consumers the authors of the study state that there is no reason to believe that co-regulatory models as defined within the study are not sufficiently effective to implement European directives. Therefore they suggest allowing for this alternative form of regulation for this purpose. However, the actual functioning of co-regulatory systems depends to a high degree on factors like the �regulatory culture� within a state or among the industry within the respective branch. Furthermore, sufficient incentives for the industry to cooperate and adequate and proportional sanctions seem to be necessary for co-regulatory systems to function properly.”