Reti Televisive Italiane SpA (RTI) (C-320/94), Radio Torre (C-328/94), Rete A Srl (C-329/94), Vallau Italiana Promomarket Srl (C-337/94), Radio Italia Solo Musica Srl and Others (C-338/94) and GETE Srl (C-339/94) v Ministero delle Poste e Telecomunicazioni.
Date: 1996-12-12
22 Consequently, where the questions put by the national court concern the interpretation of a provision of Community law, the Court is, in principle, bound to give a ruling (see Case C-231/89 Gmurzynska-Bscher v Oberfinanzdirektion Koeln [1990] ECR I-4003, paragraph 20).
23 The Court does not give a preliminary ruling on a question raised by a national court where, inter alia, the interpretation of Community law or the examination of the validity of a rule of Community law sought by the national court bears no relation to the actual nature of the case or to the subject-matter of the main action (see Case 126/80 Salonia v Poidomani and Giglio [1981] ECR 1563, paragraph 6; Durighello, cited above, paragraph 9; and Case C-343/90 Lourenço Dias v Director da Alfândega do Porto [1992] ECR I-4673, paragraph 18).
31 Direct offers to the public are broadcasts presenting products which may be ordered directly by telephone, mail or videotext and which are delivered to viewers at home. Programmes intended to promote direct offers to the public are significantly longer than spot advertisements, which are forms of promotion usually lasting a very short time, having a very strong suggestive impact, generally appearing in groups at varying intervals during or between programmes, and produced either by those who supply the products or services or by their agents, rather than by the broadcasters themselves.
32 Amongst those features, only the duration of `direct offers to the public', which depends on how that type of promotion is presented, appears capable of justifying the possibility of increasing the maximum transmission time, in order not to disadvantage such offers by comparison with spot advertisements.  The fact that the products may subsequently be ordered by telephone, mail or videotext can have no relevance whatever to the increase of transmission time, since the ordering of products is a wholly separate operation from the televised presentation which is the subject-matter of the provision in question.
33 Moreover, that analysis is confirmed by the Explanatory Report accompanying the European Convention of 5 May 1989 on Transfrontier Television, which was drafted at the same time as the directive and is referred to in the preamble to the latter.  Paragraph 168 of the report indicates that the option of raising to 20% the ceiling for advertising space referred to in Article 12 of the Convention, the text of which is identical to that of Article 18(1) of the directive, is justified by the need to take account of the development of new forms of publicity such as teleshopping, which are generally more time-consuming than traditional spot advertisements.
34 It must therefore be concluded that the option introduced by the second sentence of Article 18(1) of raising the percentage of transmission time for advertising to 20% of the daily total may also be used for forms of publicity which, whilst not constituting `offers to the public', nevertheless, like them and because of the way in which they are presented, require more time than spot advertisements.
37 It follows from the above that the directive, and in particular Articles 1(b) and 18 thereof, must be interpreted as meaning that the expression `forms of advertisements such as direct offers to the public' in Article 18 is used in the context of the Community rules, with regard to the possibility of increasing maximum advertising time to 20% of daily transmission time, by way of example.  Consequently, it may also cover other forms of promotion, such as `telepromotions' which, like `direct offers to the public', require more time than spot advertisements on account of their method of presentation.
Question 2
Admissibility