The provisions laid down in Chapter 1, Article 8 and 9 of the Freedom of the Press Act to the effect that rules may be published in acts of law concerning originators rights, alcohol and tobacco advertising, the provisions of credit information and the manner of procuring information shall apply also to radio programmes, films and sound recordings without hindrance of this Fundamental Law. The rules contained in this Fundamental Law do no preclude the lying down in an act of law provisions concerning a general ban on commercial advertising in radio programmes or concerning conditions applying to such advertising. The same is true of provisions concerning a ban on and conditions applying to other advertising and transmission of programmes financed wholly or in part by a person other than the person operating the programme service. On the Freedom of the Press Art. In the following we refer to commercial speech as speech in television and radio commercial as well as in advertising in the press, since we think that this is an area where Swedish law might have some particularities in relation to, for example, American law.
Commercial speech is offered lesser protection that regular speech.
For example there are two laws limiting the freedom of speech in area of tobacco and alcohol advertising. In the area of regulations concerning consumer credits Swedish law contains some limitations. According to Swedish law on consumer credits companies are obliged to include explicit information about for example the actual rate of interest. This law however does not contain any limitations as to the content of the advertising or commercial itself. However, advertising on tobacco and alcohol are the two most important areas of limitation of commercial speech.