North Macedonia

[MK] New regulation on broadcasting of European audiovisual Works and Works of independent producers

IRIS 2015-1:1/42

Borce Manevski

Independent Media Consultant

On 4 December 2014 the Media Regulation Authority - the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services - adopted a by-law regulation which is based on the provisions in Article 18 of the Broadcasting Law which regulates the broadcasts of European works and the works of independent producers. The by-law act “Rulebook on Broadcasting European Audiovisual Works and Works of Independent Producers” („Правилник за емитување европски аудиовизуелни дела и дела од независни продуценти“) defines more precisely the types of broadcast programming that could be considered as “European audiovisual work” or as “a work of an independent producer”. The obligations from the Rulebook refer only to broadcasters with national coverage, while the regional and the local broadcasters, niche TV channels which broadcast news, sports events, advertising, and teleshopping as well as the Parliamentary Channel are exempt from this obligation.

The Rulebook provides the broadcasters with guidelines on how to calculate the airing time of European audiovisual works. The share of European audiovisual works in the broadcasts programming must include two broadcasts of each work (the premiere and the first rerun) in the course of one year, regardless of the year of the production. The European audiovisual works also include the audiovisual works produced by the broadcasters themselves and the Macedonian audiovisual works. For the newly licensed TV broadcasters the by-law act envisages in Article 6 a so called “progressive fulfilment of these requirements”: “The television programme services that will be granted state-level broadcast licenses for the first time after this Rulebook enters into force, shall meet the requirement for the promotion of European audiovisual works progressively over a period of five years. In the first year, the share of European audiovisual works should be at least 10%, while in the second, third, and fourth year, the share of European audiovisual works shall increase by at least 10% annually, amounting to at least 51 % in the fifth year.”

The Rulebook obliges the TV broadcasters to allocate at least 10% of their annual programming-related budgets (both for production and for purchasing television programming), for European audiovisual works produced by independent producers, where at least half of these should be produced in the last five years. The broadcasters are required to keep daily records of the broadcast European audiovisual works and works by independent producers throughout the year and report to the Media Regulation Authority on the fulfilment of these requirement in the previous year, at the latest by 31 March of the following year.