Vision & Mission

Vision

Be the leading advocate for commercial broadcasting in the European Union on all platforms by supporting policies that promote:

Incentives to invest in and promote original European TV content
Commercial broadcasters are a cornerstone of pluralism of content and choice
Contractual freedom and copyright enforcement as a driver of commercial success

Mission

Promote and defend the ACT Vision in EU legislative discussions and EU media by responding to public inquiries, proactively creating and disseminating industry information and positions as well as organising physical and online policy discussion platforms to promote the collective interests of its Members.

More specifically, the purpose of the ACT is to promote the collective interest of its Members by:

facilitating the definition of common positions, proposals and actions on, including without limitation, regulatory environment, professional rules, programming;
explaining to national, international or European policy makers the contribution the television industry makes to European society, in terms of, including without limitation, culture, news and to the European economy, in terms of, including without limitation, growth, innovation, jobs;
influencing the EU’s political and policy agenda; and
keeping its Members informed and appraised of relevant developments.

ACT is the voice of commercial broadcasting sector in Europe

The Association of Commercial Television in Europe represents the interests of leading commercial broadcasters in 37 European countries. The ACT member companies finance, produce, promote and distribute content and services benefiting millions of Europeans across all platforms.

At ACT we believe that the healthy and sustainable commercial broadcasting sector has an important role to play in the European economy, society and culture.

Our role is to protect and to promote the interests of the European private broadcasters. We engage with the EU institutions to achieve a balanced and appropriate regulatory framework which will encourage further investment and growth in our sector. This will allow the commercial audiovisual industry to continue to do what we do best – getting great content to viewers.

What we do:

We monitor policy developments at EU level and we provide our members with regulatory expertise. We share our insights and help to understand the possible implications for the audiovisual business.
We partner with EU decision makers and engage in a constant dialogue while providing them with the first-hand expertise about our sector.
We are the reference point for knowledge on the European audiovisual industry. Via research, events, publications, position papers, we increase the understanding of our business and actively contribute to the process of policy making.
We are a leading platform for our members to network and exchange ideas about latest policy developments and best practices in a fast-paced world of media to support the growth of our industry.
We represent the industry at external public events, institutional working groups, EU and international organisations. We liaise with the European trade press and engage in social media to make sure that the voice of commercial broadcasters is heard.

A few words of history

Press conference in 1989 announcing the launch of the ACT

The ACT was set up in 1989. Back then, there were fewer than 100 broadcasters in the then twelve Member States of the European Community. With the occasional exception, most European countries had only ended the state monopoly of television broadcasting in the mid-1980s. The ACT had five founder members. As commercial television models proved popular with viewers, so many new channels were launched and ACT membership grew quickly. Yet some of the key regulatory issues were already becoming apparent, with European rules adopted in 1989 for the first time on transfrontier television, advertising, programme quotas, and then separate rules negotiated for copyright in the early 90s.