Media regulation in Europe is examined with respect to the increasing importance of the ‘supranational’ in the shape of the EU. This supranational influence is found to be increasingly important for the audiovisual sector, but to a much lesser extent for the print media. There have been two major ‘prongs' to policy at the supranational level. The first of these is the Television Without Frontiers directive which has established European content requirements, as yet on a voluntary basis in the EU itself, but as mandatory requirements for the applicant countries for membership in Central and Eastern Europe. The second is the MEDIA program of subsidisation for training, pre-production and other activities in the audiovisual sector. The policy area is one which has been strongly fought over between ‘protectionists' such as France, the European Commission and the European Parliament on one side, and the more market and trade-oriented United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as the United States export lobby, on the other. Protection of culture is put forward as a major justification for regulation and subsidisation of the audiovisual sector and industry, with enthusiasm for this diminishing from north to south but being strongest in France.
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