Décret n° 92-280 du 27 mars 1992 modifié, relatif à la publicité, au parrainage et au téléachat - Consolidated version

Decree no. 92-280 of March 27, 1992, implementing articles 27 and 33 of law no. 86-1067 of September 30, 1986, and laying down the general principles defining the obligations of service editors with regard to advertising, sponsorship and teleshopping.

amended and supplemented by

• decree no. 2003-960 of October 7, 2003 (Journal officiel of October 8, 2003)
• decree no. 2003-1056 of November 4, 2003 (Journal officiel of November 6, 2003)
• decree no. 2008-1392 of December 19, 2008(Journal officiel of December 24, 2008)
• decree no. 2010-747 of July 2, 2010(Journal officiel of July 3, 2010)
• decree no. 2010-1379 of November 12, 2010(Journal officiel of November 14, 2010)
• decree no. 2017-193 of February 15, 2017(Journal officiel of February 17, 2017)

Article 1
The present decree is applicable to television service editors.
With the exception of Article 15, it also applies to publishers of non-television services shown on terrestrial hertzian channels in digital mode, under the conditions laid down in the agreement concluded with the French Superior Audiovisual Council. However, the provision of advertising, sponsorship and teleshopping by an on-demand audiovisual media service editor is governed by Decree no. 2010-1379 of November 12, 2010 on on-demand audiovisual media services.

TITLE ONE

Advertising
Chapter I

General schemes

Article 2
For the purposes of this decree, advertising is any form of televised message shown for remuneration or other consideration with a view either to promoting the supply of goods or services, including those presented under their generic name, in the context of a commercial, industrial, craft or professional activity, or to ensuring the commercial promotion of a public or private enterprise.
This definition does not include direct supplies to the public with a view to the sale, purchase or rental of products or the provision of services in return for payment.

Article 3
Advertising must comply with the requirements of truthfulness, decency and respect for human dignity.
It must not damage the credit of the State.

Article 4
Advertising must be free from any discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, nationality, disability, age or sexual orientation, from any scene of violence and from any incitement to behaviour prejudicial to health, to the safety of persons and property or to the protection of the environment.

Article 5
Advertising must not contain any element likely to shock viewers' religious, philosophical or political convictions.

Article 6
Advertising must respect the interests of consumers. All advertising containing, in any form whatsoever, false allegations, indications or presentations likely to mislead consumers is prohibited.

Article 7
Advertising must not cause moral or physical harm to persons under 18. To this end, it must not :
1. directly incite persons under 18 to purchase a product or service by exploiting their inexperience or credulity;
2. directly incite persons under 18 to persuade their parents or third parties to purchase the products or services concerned;
3. exploit or alter the special trust that persons under 18 have in their parents, teachers or other persons;
4. unjustifiably present persons under 18 in a dangerous situation.

Article 8
Advertising for products for which television advertising is prohibited by law and for the following products and economic sectors is prohibited:
- beverages containing more than 1.2 degrees of alcohol ;
- literary publishing, except on television services distributed exclusively by cable or shown by satellite;
- cinema ;
- distribution for commercial promotional operations taking place entirely or mainly on national territory, except in overseas France and the territories of French Polynesia, the Wallis and Futuna Islands, the departmental community of Mayotte and New Caledonia.
For the purposes of this decree, a commercial promotional operation is defined as any supply of products or services to consumers, or any organization of an event, which is occasional or seasonal in nature, due in particular to the duration of the offer, the prices and conditions of sale advertised, the size of the stock on sale, the nature, origin or special qualities of the products or services or ancillary products or services offered.

Article 9
Surreptitious advertising is prohibited.
For the purposes of this decree, surreptitious advertising is the verbal or visual presentation of goods, services, the name, trademark or activities of a producer of goods or provider of services in programs, when such presentation is made for advertising purposes.

Article 10
Advertising must not use subliminal techniques.

Article 11
Advertisements must not summon, either visually or orally, persons who regularly present news broadcasts and current affairs magazines.

Chapter II
Rules governing the diffusion of advertising messages

Article 12
Advertising messages are shown in compliance with the provisions of law no. 94-665 of August 4, 1994 on the use of the French language.

Article 13
Commercials must be shown simultaneously throughout the service area. However, this :
1° Does not apply to service editors whose obligations include programming of a regional nature, for such programming;
2° Does not prevent the exchange of messages between advertisers for the purposes of commercial trials, under the control of the French Superior Audiovisual Council and in geographically limited areas;
3° Does not prevent service editors distributed by cable or satellite who carry out local opting out under their editorial responsibility from showing advertising messages during such opting out.

Article 14
Advertising messages or sequences of advertising messages must be easily identifiable as such and clearly separated from the rest of the program, both before and after their diffusion, by screens recognizable by their optical and acoustic characteristics.
Where the characteristics of the television service do not allow advertising to be clearly identified as such by the means provided for in the preceding paragraph, the agreements and specifications may define the conditions under which this obligation is met.
Non-advertising messages of general interest, such as those shown as part of charity and government information campaigns, may be inserted where appropriate in advertising sequences.
The sound level of advertising sequences, and of the screens preceding and following them, must not exceed the average sound level of the rest of the program, particularly as regards the treatment of sound dynamics.
Isolated advertising should be the exception, except when sporting events are being shown.

Article 15
Subject to the provisions of article 73 of the aforementioned law of September 30, 1986, and without prejudice to the specific provisions applicable to each organization or service mentioned in article 1, advertising is shown under the following conditions:
I. - Commercials are inserted between programs. However, they may be inserted within programs, provided that they do not undermine the integrity and value of these programs, that they take account of natural interruptions in the program and its duration and nature, and that they do not infringe rights holders' rights.
In the above case, a period of at least twenty minutes must elapse between two successive interruptions within a program.
II. - When broadcasts are made up of autonomous parts, or in sports broadcasts and broadcasts of events and shows comprising intervals, advertising messages are inserted between these autonomous parts or in these intervals.
III. - The diffusion of news broadcasts, news magazines, religious programs and children's programs lasting less than thirty minutes may not be interrupted by advertising messages. When their duration is equal to or greater than thirty minutes, the schemes set out in I and II above apply.
IV. - When the diffusion of a cinematographic work is interrupted by advertising, the latter may not include messages of a total duration exceeding six minutes.
V. - The maximum time devoted to the diffusion of advertising messages is set by the agreements and specifications under the following conditions:
1° For service editors showing terrestrial broadcasts over a geographical area with a population of more than ten million inhabitants, it may not exceed an average of nine minutes per hour per day over all the programming periods during which such broadcasts are authorized, nor twelve minutes for any given clock hour. However, for service editors other than those previously broadcast terrestrially in analog mode, and for a period not exceeding seven years from the date specified in the authorization for the actual start of broadcasts, the maximum time devoted to the diffusion of advertising messages is increased to twelve minutes for a given clock hour.
2° For publishers of services distributed by networks not using frequencies assigned by the French Superior Audiovisual Council, and for publishers of services broadcast by terrestrial radio over a geographical area with a population of ten million or less, the time devoted to the diffusion of advertising messages is set by the agreement according to the category to which the service in question belongs. It may not exceed twelve minutes for any given clock hour.
The agreement may, however, make provision for longer periods than those stipulated in the previous paragraph, for the benefit of service editors who, on a channel allocated to a commune, a group of communes or an association, provide information on communal, inter-communal or local life.
In the case of service editors whose services are intended solely for the national territory and cannot be received, directly or indirectly, in one or more other Member States of the European Union, the maximum durations stipulated in the first paragraph of 2° may be increased to twelve minutes per broadcast hour on average daily, and to fifteen minutes for a given clock hour.
For the purposes of this decree, a clock hour is defined as a period of sixty successive minutes beginning at minute zero and ending at minute fifty-nine.

Article 15-1
For cinema and pay-per-view services, programs subject to special access conditions, and programs whose free-to-air diffusion has been exceptionally authorized by the French Superior Audiovisual Council, may not include advertising messages.
However, notwithstanding article 8, for cinema services distributed by cable, satellite or digital terrestrial broadcasting, programs subject to special access conditions may include cinema-related advertising. In this case, the proportions set under V of article 15 are respected, respectively, for programs shown free-to-air and for programs subject to special access conditions.

Chapter III

Article 16
No advertising may be inserted in religious service diffusions.

Rules applicable to services entirely devoted to self-promotion

Article 16-1
A self-promotional service is a service distributed by cable or shown by satellite which reserves all its diffusion time for the promotion of the products, services or programs of an artificial person.
The provisions of articles 9 and 14 do not apply to programs devoted to self-promotion.

TITLE II

Sponsorship

Article 17
For the application of this decree, sponsorship is any contribution made by a public or private enterprise or artificial person, or by a natural person, not engaged in the publishing of television or on-demand audiovisual media services or in the production of audiovisual works, to the financing of television services or programs for the purpose of promoting its name, brand, image, activities, products or services.

Article 18
Sponsored television programs must meet the following requirements:
I. - Their content and programming may not, under any circumstances, be influenced by the sponsor in such a way as to undermine the responsibility and editorial independence of the television company or service.
II. - They must not directly encourage the purchase or rental of the sponsor's or a third party's products or services, and in particular may not include specific promotional references to these products or services.
III. - Sponsorship must be clearly identified as such at the beginning, end or during the sponsored program.

This identification may be made using the name, logo or other symbol of the sponsor, in particular by means of a reference to its products or services or a distinctive sign, subject to the following reservations:

• 1° Any mention of the sponsor during the course of a program, except where it occurs during an interruption of the program, must remain punctual and discreet, limited to recalling the contribution made by the sponsor, and may not take the form of an advertising slogan or the presentation of the product itself or its packaging;
• 2° When the sponsorship is intended to finance a gaming or competition program, the presentation of the sponsor's products or services to individuals as prizes may not be the subject of any advertising argument.

IV. - In trailers, mention of the sponsor must remain punctual and discreet, and be limited to recalling the contribution made by the sponsor.

Article 19
Television programs may not be sponsored by companies whose principal activity is the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages or tobacco products. Companies whose main business is the manufacture or sale of medicines or the provision of medical treatment may not sponsor television programs other than to promote their name or image.

Article 20
News broadcasts and political news programmes may not be sponsored.

PART III

Teleshopping

Article 21
Teleshopping means the diffusion of offers made directly to the public with a view to the supply, in return for payment, of movable or immovable property, services, or of rights and obligations relating thereto.
The diffusion of such supplies is reserved for teleshopping programs.

Chapter 1
General schemes

Article 22
Articles 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of this decree, which apply to television advertising, also apply to teleshopping programs.

Article 23
Teleshopping programs are clearly announced as such.

Article 24
Abrogated by decree no. 2008-1392 of December 19, 2008.

Article 25
The presentation of goods or services offered for sale must be designed with the interests of consumers in mind, and must not contain claims or indications that are false or likely to mislead the public.
Goods or services shall be described as precisely as possible, in accordance with the conditions laid down in the agreements and specifications.
Order conditions must be unambiguous as to the commitments entered into.

Article 26
Teleshopping programs must not involve persons under 18.

Article 27
Agreements and specifications set out the conditions under which the same good or service may be presented both in a teleshopping program and in an advertisement.

Chapter II
Rules governing the diffusion of teleshopping programs

Article 28
Teleshopping programs may not be interrupted by advertising.

Article 29
The duration of teleshopping programs may not be less than fifteen minutes. Their total duration may not exceed three hours per day.
Such programmes may only be shown on terrestrial television between midnight and 11am and between 2pm and 4pm. However, they may not be shown on Wednesday afternoons.

Chapter III

Article 30
Television services shall not show more than eight teleshopping programs per day.

Schemes applicable to service editors devoted mainly or exclusively to teleshopping

Article 31
Abrogated by decree n° 2008-1392 of December 19, 2008

Article 32
The provisions of articles 23, 28, 29 and 30 do not apply to service editors distributed by cable or shown by satellite that are exclusively devoted to teleshopping.
Nor shall these provisions apply to service editors who reserve at least 50% of their diffusion time for teleshopping programs and who are not received, directly or indirectly, in any other Member State of the European Community or signatory to the Agreement on the European Economic Area or party to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. For these service editors, the agreement lays down in particular the total amount of time devoted to teleshopping, the number of daily teleshopping programs and the duration of these programs.

Article 33
The schemes set out in articles 23, 28, 29 and 30 do not apply to services broadcast via digital terrestrial channels which are exclusively devoted to the diffusion of teleshopping programs.

TITLE IV

Transitional and final provisions

Article 34
The present decree is applicable in Wallis and Futuna, French Polynesia, New Caledonia and the French Southern and Antarctic Lands in its wording resulting from decree no. 2017-193 of February 15, 2017.

Article 34-1
Notwithstanding the provisions of article 8 of the present decree, all advertising for distribution remains prohibited until January 1, 2007 for editors of national television services broadcast by terrestrial hertzian means in analog mode.

Article 35
Decree no. 87-37 of January 26, 1987 is abrogated.

Article 36
The Minister for Culture and Communication, Government Spokesperson, the Minister for Overseas France and Territories and the Minister Delegate for Communication are each responsible for the execution of the present decree, which will be published in the Official Journal of the French Republic.