adrian monck

British Political TV ads – courtesy of Europe?

The European Court of Human Rights could be greenlighting the kind of political advertising that the United States has grown used to.

Russ Taylor at Ofcomwatch alerted me to the ruling.

My caveats?

  • The Government doesn’t want it
  • Newspapers don’t want it
  • Political parties can’t afford it.

Remember too that British political advertising is a state gratuity dispensed to favour the parties voted for in previous elections (itself profoundly unfair).

The background? Norway bans political advertising on TV. Back in 2003 its regulator fined TV Vest for airing political ads by mild-mannered activists the Pensioners Party. TV Vest appealed and lost every step of the way, except today.

Here in Britain, HMG – in the form of an obliging civil servant – submitted this to the court:

54. The UK Government provided information about the legal position in the United Kingdom, where political advertising had been prohibited on radio and television by all legislation since the Television Act 1954 had created commercial television. When enacting the Communications Act 2003, Parliament had taken the view that it was important to maintain the prohibition because: (1) Broadcasting was a particularly powerful and pervasive medium and impartiality was of fundamental importance. (2) Without the prohibition there would be an unacceptable danger that the agenda of political debate would be unfairly distorted in favour of the views held by those wealthy enough to spend most on broadcast advertising. Those with a different point of view would either have to find rich backers to pay for equal time, or allow the case to go unanswered. (3) The prohibition applied to all political advertising, irrespective of content. There was no discrimination by reference to content of the message.

55. The UK Government invited the Court to confine VgT [Vgt Verein gegen Tierfabriken v. Switzerland (no. 24699/94, ECHR 2001-VI)] to its factual circumstances or alternatively to depart form [from?] its reasoning. In that case the Court had rejected without explanation or analysis the contention that the potency and pervasiveness of the broadcast media justified special restrictions on political advertising not applicable to other media. The Court had further omitted to take account for the significance of the availability of alternative means of allowing the applicant to pursue its political objectives. Nor did it address the point that advertising could damage the impartiality of the broadcaster, an argument which it accepted in Murphy with respect to religious advertising. The Court appeared to have misunderstood the justification for a ban on political advertising, namely the fact that such a ban could not distinguish between different groups by reference to power, funds or influence which they happened to have at a particular time. The legislature should be entitled to conclude that there was no workable basis for such a partial prohibition. Nor had the Court addressed, far less answered, the point that the legislature was seeking to protect a fundamental interest of a democratic society; that political debate and the political process should not be altered by those who were able and willing to spend large sums of money propagating their political views through the potent medium of broadcasting. In Bowman [inter alia Bowman v. United Kingdom (judgment of 19 February 1998, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-I, pp. 1898-189, § 43)], the Court had recognised this as a legitimate aim which could justify restrictions on freedom of political speech. In VgT the Court had also omitted to refer to the fact that Switzerland was far from an isolated example of a State with legislation prohibiting the broadcasting of political advertising when such restrictions were not applied in other media.

56. Like Bowman, the present case did not simply concern restrictions on political speech; it concerned a balance between freedom of expression for political speech and the need to preserve the integrity of the democratic process in the public interest, a matter in which the State had a margin of appreciation. In any event, there was no clear distinction in this context between religion and morals, on the one hand, and politics on the other.

57. The UK Government submitted a copy of a judgment handed down by the House of Lords on 12 March 2008 ([2008] UKHL 15) dismissing an appeal by Animal Defenders International, finding that the prohibition on the broadcasting of political advertising in the UK under the Communications Act 2003 was consistent with Article 10 of the Convention.

Now the judgment, under these terms:

[T]he Court’s task in exercising its supervisory function is not to take the place of the national authorities but rather to review under Article 10, in the light of the case as a whole, the decisions they have taken pursuant to their power of appreciation.

Seems to throw this out:

76. … the fact that the audio-visual media has a more immediate and powerful effect than other media (see Jersild, cited above, § 31), albeit an important consideration in the assessment of proportionality (see Murphy, cited above, § 69), could not justify the disputed prohibition and fine imposed in respect of the broadcasting of the political advertising at issue (see VgT, cited above, § 74).

77. The view expounded by the respondent Government, supported by the third party intervening Governments, that there was no viable alternative to a blanket ban must therefore be rejected.

78. In sum, there was not, in the Court’s view, a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the legitimate aim pursued by the prohibition on political advertising and the means deployed to achieve that aim. The restriction which the prohibition and the imposition of the fine entailed on the applicants’ exercise of their freedom of expression cannot therefore be regarded as having been necessary in a democratic society, within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 10 for the protection the rights of others, notwithstanding the margin of appreciation available to the national authorities. Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention.

But, I’m not a lawyer. And nor are lawyers. When it comes to politics – they’re law makers.

Do any news outlets like the story? Interesting to see that at time of writing only Le Monde (rather badly – they mess up the judgment) and the Norwegian media have covered this so far.

Adrian Monck

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8 responses to “British Political TV ads – courtesy of Europe?”

  1. […] the decision here and further comments from OfcomWatch (Russ Taylor) and MediaPal@LSE (Andrew) and Adrian Monck. While some of the counterarguments are dealt with in a bit more detail by the Court on this […]

  2. Adrian – I’m pleased by this decision. As a campaigner, it is hard to engage the public when you are essentially prohibited by law from communicating with them at every turn.

    What’s your rationale for saying that the British Print Media will oppose the introduction of political advertising?

    I’ve blogged on this, too. Let me know what you think:
    http://www.transatlanticpost.com

  3. The libertarian idealist part of me likes the idea. The conservative realist in me thinks that for every noble cent with a dream there’s an ignoble dollar waiting to crush it.

    Newspapers don’t want TV to become a partisan playground – that’s their job.

    Will check out the post!

  4. I think the Obama campaign just proved that the conservative realist isn’t always right, didn’t it? The noble cents with dreams in that campaign added up to the point that they were outspending the ignoble McCain dollars by 3 to 1 on the air.

    I grant you, the system is open to abuse and misinformation: but shutting it down entirely is not a reasoned answer. I think that, even with its flaws, the US system is far superior. The matter for debate there is not whether or not they should allow political ads – simply how they should be funded.

    There is no reason we couldn’t have that same debate ongoing in the UK while Political Ads were made legal.

    I don’t for a minute believe that it will lead to a sudden increase in negative, or ignoble, ads – for two reasons: 1) Some PPBs are already negative – so in terms of content it would be no different to the current situation (there would just be a greater number), and 2) the “ignoble dollars” are most likely to come from big corporations (like Oil Companies), who are already free to run as many Ads as they like on TV – cf: the number of car ads, alcohol ads, etc, already on the airwaves.

    Anyhow – my support for political ads is more practical than it is ideological: I feel that campaigns are prohibited from advertising here, in whatever form, and the electorate tend to be less educated and less engaged as a result. That, in turn, makes campaigning much harder.

    —and to respond to the newspaper issue: I don’t agree at all – they’re so involved in partisan politics that they would lap this up! Just because ITV or five have a few ads from Cameron or Brown doesn’t give them a political allegiance (especially if they have ads from both parties)…. but it certainly does give the papers material to “report on” (trans. “work with”).

  5. Hi Adrian

    Interesting post – especially agree with the ‘law as unrefined politics in this context’ point near the end.

    To pick up your third reservation, though, there are two components of the UK ban, the first focused on party political adverts (mitigated by PEBs and PPBs), the second also precluding comment by any other ‘political’ organisation or other person with a political message. A relaxation of the ban re the second aspect need not impact on party finances at all. Indeed, it might take the pressure off a bit if others were carrying the spend on their behalf.

    To date, those frustrated by the ban have been charities and marginalised groups (ADI, ProLife Alliance, Making Poverty History, Oxfam, Amnesty, RSPCA etc – hence the report put out by Baroness Kennedy et al last year), not the uber-rich factions (they can get around the ban by buying newspapers, or by having PR agencies supply copy). Hence, the former are the voices that are excluded from the MSM to a greater or lesser extent (see Rowntree Foundation report on poverty reporting); at least, their viewpoints are always mediated. Corporations remain free to advertise their partial perspectives in ‘commercial’ advertising slots (most egregiously, and in some cases humorously by car manufacturers). Of course, this might change if the ban were lifted and those from the latter category came to see advertising as the easier route (for a dystopian view – that is a comment on the US experience – see Falk, Grizard and McDonald (2006) Legislative Issue Advertising in the 108th Congress: Pluralism or Peril? Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11(4):148-164).

    Most important though are issues of audience and media response to such messaging. In the latter respect, as per TransAtlantic, might we not expect journalists to pick up and challenge propositions put in advertisements. It would after all be obvious to spot – the naked exercise of power, rather than the obscured version that we have today. In the first regard, research evidence from the states suggests that viewers turn off or even adopt an oppositional standpoint to (third party) campaign ads (see the entertaining Pulp Politics, author forgotten for now), and that such advertising is largely ineffective in terms of persuading people (although it is very effective in terms of agenda-setting inside the Beltway – see Falk et al (2003)). One might argue that all publicity is good publicity – and ADI certainly got a bang for their buck in terms of coverage of (the early stages of) their action – but doesn’t this speak directly to your trust/credibility line of thought…

    Anyway, best regards
    Andrew

  7. If, by democratic integrity, HMG means reinforcing the established political triocracy and preventing minority parties from having access to the electorate. then that’s democracy.

    If HMG were genuinely concerned about the super-rich distorting the system, then your Russian plutocrats would be kept out of our other media and strict media ownership rules would be reintroduced. What’ so precious about TV anyway?