AUGUST 2025

The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) brings together the most prominent commercial broadcasters in the Czech Republic. The Regulation on Political Advertising (2024/900) has a fundamental impact on our members, as they are an integral part of the advertising market. As such, the Regulation will apply to them in cases where political advertising is published. For this reason, we highly appreciate the initiative of the European Commission, which aims to issue guidance to support the proper application and compliance with the Regulation, among other things, by including practical examples of political advertising.

After carefully reviewing the published version of the guidance, we are of the opinion that it is necessary to further refine the text of the guidance in two key areas in order for them to truly meet the expectations placed upon them by the advertising market—namely, to facilitate the practical application of the Regulation. This objective can also be supported by the feedback the European Commission receives from stakeholders as part of this initiative, which is, after all, the aim of the EU’s consultation strategy.

We cannot overlook the fact that the Regulation itself has already sparked a wide range of reactions. For this reason, we attribute immense importance to the guidance, as it is likely to become a key framework for the proper implementation of the Regulation on Political Advertising in practice. It is also possible that various entities will decide based on the guidance whether or not to publish political advertising at all. In this context, and briefly for the sake of completeness, we draw attention to a recent announcement published by Meta on its social network (https://about.fb.com/news/2025/07/ending-political-electoral-and-social-issue-advertising-in-the-eu/), which specifically states: “From early October 2025, we will no longer allow political, electoral and social issue ads on our platforms in the EU. Despite extensive engagement with policymakers to share these concerns, we have been left with an impossible choice: alter our services to offer an advertising product which doesn’t work for advertisers or users, without guarantee that our solution would be viewed as compliant, or stop allowing political, electoral and social issue ads in the EU. We’re not the only company to have been forced into this position.”

The first part of the guidance that requires further attention and adjustment to meet the needs of practical application is the section addressing the very nature of political advertising. Clear criteria and examples of messages that are to be considered political advertising are exactly what the market primarily expects from the guidance. However, it is not acceptable for the guidance to expand the definition of political advertising. From the perspective of legislative instruments, the guidance is a tool intended to interpret the law within its boundaries—by its nature, it cannot go beyond the law. On the contrary, it is essential that the guidance is clear and comprehensible so it can serve as a helpful guide in interpreting the Regulation on Political Advertising. The primary goal of the guidance should be to clarify the definition of “political advertising” as set out in the Regulation, ensuring it is clear and unambiguous. Therefore, we present our recommendations below:

Specifically, we are concerned that even purely commercial messages with a societal dimension may be incorrectly classified as political advertising. Commercial advertising with ethical or value-based content must not be automatically considered political advertising. The ‘elements to be considered’ that are shown in Table 1 on pages 20 to 23 of the guidance contain various criteria intended to help identify when a particular case involves political advertising. However, these criteria are of a purely subjective nature and are also commonly found in commercial advertising. Therefore, they cannot be taken as definitive indicators that a message constitutes political advertising. We are convinced that only objective and enforceable criteria will help distinguish between political and societal advertising. Commercial advertising with ethical or value-based content must not be automatically treated as political.

Another part of the guidance that needs to be revised—as we have already mentioned above—is the section concerning obligations under the Regulation. Media outlets disseminating advertising naturally have no influence over the content of the advertisement or its original intent. We must therefore clearly object to any discriminatory shifting of responsibility for political advertising onto a single link in the advertising chain—namely, onto us as media houses—especially since Article 7(1) of the Regulation and Section 3.2.4 of the guidance require providers to verify whether an advertisement qualifies as political. This effectively demands that we, as mere disseminators, subjectively assess the nature of submitted advertising. Responsibility for political advertising must be shared across the entire advertising chain—each party should bear responsibility only for the part it can objectively control. All of this must be based on clearly defined criteria.

Conclusion

To briefly summarise our recommendations and the direction in which the guidance should be adjusted in Section 2 (What is political advertising?) and Section 3 (Obligations under the Regulation): As for the criteria used to determine whether an advertisement constitutes political advertising, there must be a clear and direct link to a political objective—that is, objective and enforceable criteria. This will provide legal certainty and reduce the risk of overregulation, a concern that has been frequently raised since the publication of the Draghi report. Regarding the objections raised to the obligations imposed on broadcasters—as an integral part of the advertising chain—it is absolutely essential that responsibility is distributed fairly and does not rest solely on us as broadcasters. Any other approach would undoubtedly have a significant impact on the sustainability of the entire media sector. We see the potential of the guidance in the fact that, if it meets the expectations placed on it by the advertising market, it could become a trigger for a reassessment of the currently hesitant attitudes toward the Regulation on Political Advertising.

JULY 2022

With regard to the ongoing negotiations on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on transparency and targeting of political advertising, we consider it necessary to emphasise at the outset that the problems of the internal market relating to political advertising concern only the online environment, and our opinions, which we set out below, follow from this real situation.

In our opinion, a clarification of the definition of political advertising in the sense that political advertising in the proposal will mean exclusively online political advertising is essential for the establishment of a healthy market, inter alia in order to ensure that the current well-functioning regulatory frameworks and national definitions of political advertising are not undermined or affected. Given the fact that political advertising is enshrined in national legislation in the Member States in some way, we emphasise that it is essential to assess very carefully how the proposed legislation corresponds to the existing national definitions of political advertising.

We welcome the intention to address non-transparent political advertising and its impact on the democratic process and democratic society. In line with the stated objectives and the impact assessment, we see that internal market issues are essentially linked to the online sphere, while traditional political advertising in traditional media, if it is allowed, is limited to the national level and strictly regulated.

We also emphasise that it is absolutely essential that online platforms are also directly responsible for all advertising content – political or other – shown to consumers through them and that they make this assessment themselves rather than relying on third-party statements. This solution would be much more effective; in this context, it should be noted that at present, this requirement is already imposed on us as linear broadcasters, and therefore, the different rules contribute to inequality in the market, which we consider highly inappropriate. We, as commercial broadcasters, play a major role in informing the public by providing diverse, credible and verified news and political coverage while being regulated to the maximum extent possible. There is no reason for digital platforms to shirk responsibility for the advertising content they select, place, promote and ultimately profit from.

We understand that the underlying rationale for the regulation is to address the online sphere, i.e. addressing the gap between unregulated and regulated players, and we therefore welcome efforts to set rules for online providers of political advertising services. This can best be achieved by focusing the measures on online service providers, specifically by aligning obligations for video sharing platforms and social networks. We thus call for the adoption of a regulation that maintains the existing frameworks for regulated (traditional) players, thereby respecting the national regulatory framework and applying equivalent rules for unregulated players.

In respect of unlabelled political advertising, we believe, like other European associations of linear broadcasters, that it should not be published at all unless it meets the rules of transparency.

We believe that it is essential that online political advertising service providers should be able to link specific unlabelled political ads to legal or natural persons, i.e. they should verify the identity of customers before publishing the ads. Platforms must therefore be obliged to maintain transparent and up-to-date repositories.

We believe that the proposed regulation should not aim to facilitate the cross-border provision of political advertising services. Political advertising is not a service like other services, given its impact on our democracy. The aim should be to redress imbalances and protect national democratic debate, not to promote cross-border business models.

Like our partner association ACT, we welcome the clarifications proposed by the French Presidency in Recital 19 and Article 2 (2) regarding political views expressed in programmes and alignment with the definitions in the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD).

We also support all other proposals for changes to ensure that audiovisual media services are not disproportionately affected and are consistent with the AVMSD.