Czechia

[CZ] Amendment of Broadcasting Law

IRIS 2004-8:1/9

Jan Fučík

Česká televize

The Parliament of the Czech Republic passed an amendment to the Broadcasting Act aimed at the transposition of European Community law.

The amendment clarifies some terms of the broadcasting law in compliance with the "Television Without Frontiers" Directive.

The amendment contains specific criteria to identify the jurisdiction over broadcasting as provided in the Directive. A chain of criteria is set out to determine whether a television broadcasting organization is to be regarded as being established in the Czech Republic. The objective of these cascading criteria is to ensure that the subject of the Czech legislation are only television organisations that carry out their activities of television broadcasting in the Czech Republic. In the case that the cascading criteria do not render it possible to determine that a television broadcasting organisation is established in the Czech Republic, the decision has to be made, based on the means used for the transmission of the programme service of the television broadcasting organisation. Indicative factors may be the use of a frequency granted by the Czech Republic, or failing this, the use of a satellite capacity appertaining to the Czech Republic or the use of satellite uplink situated in the Czech Republic.

The amendment states that the limitations on advertising have to be applied to teleshopping spots also. The aim of this amendment is to make the Czech Broadcasting Law fully compatible with European Community Law.