Austria

[AT] List of Important Events Adopted

IRIS 2001-8:1/9

Peter Strothmann

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

On 13 August 2001, the Austrian Council of Ministers adopted a regulation containing the list of events which must be broadcast on freely-accessible television.

The regulation transposes Article 3a of Directive 89/552/EEC as amended by Directive 97/36/EC ("Television Without Frontiers") into Austrian law.

The following events are deemed as being of major importance for society and must therefore be shown on a freely-accessible television channel available to at least 70% of the viewing public: the Olympic Summer and Winter Games, European Championship and World Cup football matches involving the Austrian national team plus the opening match, semi-finals and final of each tournament, the final of the Austrian FA Cup and the FIS Alpine and Nordic skiing world championships. In addition to these sporting events, the Vienna Philharmonic's new year concert and the Vienna opera ball are listed as cultural events of major importance to society. Broadcasts of the Olympic Games, the skiing world championships and the Vienna opera ball may be deferred or shown in parts if separate parts of such an event of major importance or several such events take place simultaneously, or if in the past the event has not been shown in full because of its length.

The regulation is expected to enter into force on 1 October 2001 and is based on Article 4 of the Bundesgesetz über die Ausübung exklusiver Fernsehübertragungsrechte (Federal Act on the Exploitation of Exclusive TV Broadcasting Rights), which only came into force itself on 1 August 2001.


References

  • Verordnung zur Ausführung des § 4 Gesetz über die Ausübung exklusiver Fernsehübertragungsrechte
  • Regulation on the Implementation of Article 4 of the Federal Act on the Exploitation of Exclusive TV Broadcasting Rights

  • Gesetz über die Ausübung exklusiver Fernsehübertragungsrechte
  • Federal Act on the exploitation of Exclusive TV Broadcasting Rights

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.