The first report on the application of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) was published on 4 May 2012. This report indicated that, with regard to alcohol advertising, further investigations were necessary to assess, amongst other things, the exposure of minors to commercial communications for alcoholic beverages. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to answer three research questions:

1. How much alcohol advertising does an average minor6 watching linear audio-visual media services (i.e. television broadcasting) in the European Union (EU) see?

2. How much alcohol advertising does an average minor see on non-linear audio-visual media services (i.e. on-demand audio-visual media services) and other online services in the EU?

3. For audio-visual media services (both linear and non-linear) and other onlineservices, what type of alcohol advertising does an average minor see in the EU? Are minors specifically targeted by alcohol advertising? In how far is alcohol advertising appealing to minors and how? In particular, in how far do the provisions of the AVMSD and their application afford the required level of protection?

These research questions, and therefore the study, go beyond the AVMSD. For example, this study covered online services (Research Question 2) that are not currently covered by the Directive (e.g. websites and social media). In addition, the content analysis (Research Question 3) not only assessed whether advertisements are specifically aimed at minors, but also looked more broadly at what was actually shown in the advertisement and if this, from a broader perspective, could be considered appealing to minors.

To answer these questions, we used a combination of research methods. All research activities have been conducted in the period from January to December 2015.