More than 63% of Europe's television broadcasters' programming time is devoted to European works and over 36% to works by independent European producers. Figures come from the European Commission's eighth report on effectiveness of EU rules on the promotion of European works, which covers the period 2005-2006.

This report which is published every two years is based on information provided by the EU Member States and monitors the promotion of European works on European TV screens under the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive. For the first time, broadcasters in the new EU-10 Member States are fully analysed in this report, and the report shows that they show today as much European content as those in the EU-15. The Report is available from the Audiovisual and Media Policies.

Figures show the impact of Articles 4 and 5 of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive, which aim at promoting the broadcasting of European works, including those created by producers who are independent from the broadcasters. The European Commission proposed these measures in 1989 to bring the benefits of the single market to television viewers (in the form of greater choice) and to broadcasters and producers (a bigger audience for European programmes).

The new report on the implementation of these provisions in the 25 EU Member States, adopted by the Commission today, shows that the EU-wide average broadcasting time for European works has increased from 63.52% in 2005 to 65.05% in 2006. The Commission report also shows that in the medium term (2003-2006), the broadcasting of European works has stabilised at above 63%. Average transmission times varied between 47.31% in Slovenia and 81.14% in Denmark in 2005 and between 45.44% in Sweden and 81.07% in Poland in 2006.

The average share of independent producers’ works broadcast by all European channels in all Member States rose from 36.44% in 2005 to 37.59% in 2006. This is well above the 10% set by the "Television without Frontiers" Directive. This also means that in the medium term (2003-2006), the EU-wide broadcasting of European works by independent producers improved by 6.2 percentage points.