Germany

[DE] Media Authority Complains about Pornographic Broadcasts

IRIS 2000-7:1/9

Dominik Mann

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

The Hessische Landesanstalt für privaten Rundfunk (Hessian Regional Private Broadcasting Authority - LPR Hessen), which monitors the programmes of the private television channel RTL2, has complained about the broadcasting of seven pornographic films. Also on 15 June 2000, the broadcaster was prohibited from showing similar programmes in the future. LPR Hessen had decided to investigate the pornographic content of erotic films shown by RTL2 in recent months. As a result, seven out of more than thirty films that were examined were classified as "pornographic". LPR Hessen's classification therefore differed from that of the FSF, German private television's own selfregulatory body, which had previously decided that these programmes were not pornographic and could therefore be broadcast after either 11 pm or midnight. The Juristenkommission (legal committee - JK) of the film industry's governing body concurred with the FSF's classification of two of these films. One of them, however, had already been classified as pornographic by the Hamburgische Anstalt für neue Medien (Hamburg New Media Authority) after it was broadcast by another channel in 1993.

According to the Amendment to the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Agreement between Federal States on Broadcasting), programmes are prohibited if they breach the provisions of the Criminal Code. As before, therefore, the distribution of pornographic literature and films is forbidden. LPR Hessen based its decision on a different definition of pornography to that used by the FSF. The main reason it classified the films as pornographic was the fact that their overall intention was to arouse the viewer's sexual interest and that they portrayed sexual activities in a totally obtrusive or attention-seeking manner. It specifically pointed out that a film did not necessarily have to show sexual organs openly in order to constitute pornography. Moreover, LPR Hessen thought that the evaluations by the FSF and JK had no binding effect in relation to its own decision.