By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, April 27 (Reuters) – Europe’s biggest broadcasters and media groups warned EU regulators that a planned law to curb unfair digital practices should target Big Tech, not publishers and broadcasters already heavily regulated, citing risks to media business models and pluralism.
The stance reflects concern over dominant online platforms expanding into markets long central to media groups’ finances.
The Digital Fairness Act, which the European Commission’s Justice chief Michael McGrath will propose towards the end of the year, seeks to tackle dark patterns, the addictive design of digital products, misleading influencer marketing, pricing practices and subscription traps, among others.
The DFA’s one-size-fits-all approach could harm the media industry, the Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe (ACT), whose members include Canal+, RTL, Mediaset, ITV, Paramount+, NBCUniversal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Sky and TF1 Groupe, told McGrath and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen.
They warned that this approach could have a disproportionate impact on low-risk but democracy-sensitive sectors.
“The Commission continues to engage with all relevant stakeholders ahead of the preparation of the initiative at both technical and political level,” a spokesperson for the EU executive said in an email.
LAW WOULD APPLY TO ‘STRUCTURALLY DISTINCT ACTORS’
The Act could apply the same obligations to “structurally distinct actors without sufficient differentiation based on risk, function or market power,” the ACT said in an April 21 letter to McGrath and Virkkunen seen by Reuters.
“New measures must focus on the segment of the digital environment where significant responsibility gaps persist, rather than our well-regulated sectors that already uphold high editorial standards,” the group said.
Signatories to the letter include the Association of European Radios, global streaming alliance Beyond Mainstream, the European Magazine Media Association, the European Publishers Council, the European VOD Coalition and the Motion Picture Association EMEA.
The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The groups said certain design features often cited as problematic – such as autoplay, recommender systems and personalised advertising – are not inherently harmful and are vital revenue stream for the media and creative industries.
They said the DFA should take a proportionate and evidence-based approach in order not to disrupt business models that support media pluralism, journalism and creative content.
(Reporting by Foo Yun CheeEditing by Bernadette Baum and Tomasz Janowski)
