Germany

[DE] Deutschlandradio Forced to Withdraw D-Plus Digital Radio Service

IRIS 2007-8:1/44

Harald Evers

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

Deutschlandradio was forced to switch off its digital channel D-Plus following an order by the Rundfunkkommission (Broadcasting Commission) of the Länder on 31 July 2007.

D-Plus had been launched on 4 December 2006 in order to supplement the range of DAB digital radio services. Each weekday, the channel repeated four hours of documentary and discussion programmes originally broadcast on radio and television. It was closed down after the Verband Privater Rundfunk und Telemedien e.V. (association of private broadcasting and telemedia providers - VPRT ) lodged a complaint with the Hessische Staatskanzlei (Hessen State Chancellery), whose turn it was to monitor compliance with the law under Art. 31(1) of the DeutschlandRadio-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement on DeutschlandRadio - DLR-StV ), in February 2007. In its complaint, the VPRT claimed that Deutschlandradio , by broadcasting D-Plus , was exceeding the two channels it was allowed to transmit under Art. 2(1) DLR-StV , i.e. Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandradio Kultur , and was thus in breach of the Inter-State Agreement. The Rundfunkkommission upheld the complaint. It disagreed with Deutschlandradio's argument that D-Plus was a programme-related media service and, given its reorganised content, it considered it to be a third separate Deutschlandradio channel, which was forbidden under the DLR-StV .

According to media reports, however, the Rundfunkkommission's decision was also based on the fact that following the amendment of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement) and the related demands of the European Commission for greater transparency concerning financial transactions and detailed requirements for new digital services, the experiment launched with D-Plus should be stopped. Deutschlandradio for its part mentioned that D-Plus was, from the outset, only intended to be a test project for digital radio in preparation for the reorganisation of digital broadcasting and that a variety of experiments, such as the splitting of DAB frequencies, had been carried out.