European Commission: Third report on the Application of the “Television without Frontiers” Directive Adopted

IRIS 1998-5:1/3

Annemique de Kroon

Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam

The European Commission adopted a third report on the application of Articles 4 and 5 of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive for the period 1995-96. The Directive determines that Member States shall ensure, where practicable, that broadcasters reserve a majority proportion of their transmission time for European works (Article 4) and that broadcasters reserve at least 10% of their transmission time for European works created by independent producers (Article 5). The report for the first time includes general conclusions on the period from 1991 to 1996.

The best part of the broadcasters in most Member States have complied with the majority proportion of European works. Channels that do not fulfil the majority proportion requirement are mainly satellite channels or new channels with highly specialised programming. Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal considerably improved their performance compared to previous years whereas Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom showed mixed results. Compared to the previous period, reported on in the second report, the results of Finland and Austria were down.

On the whole, results with regard to compliance with article 5 - broadcast of independent productions - are satisfactory.