The playing field between YouTube and television will be a bit fairer, but still far from level

On 2 October MEP Sabine Verheyen announced: “we have established a fair, level playing field,” celebrating the adoption of the revision to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), which now will also cover “video sharing platforms” (VSPs). This was an overstatement: the Directive may make things a bit fairer, but can do very little to even out competition for the advertising revenues upon which much content production depends. The playing field that Verheyen spoke of is the one on which traditional broadcasters, video on demand (VOD) services (e.g. Netflix), and platforms for user-generated content (UGC) (e.g. YouTube) compete for audiences, and on which those that are advertising dependent compete for advertising budgets. In the lead-up to the revision, commercial broadcasters and their sales houses called for changes to address competition from online services.