North Macedonia

[MK] New Regulation on Promotion of European Works

IRIS 2015-3:1/21

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, based on the provisions in Article 18 of the broadcasting law, which regulates the broadcasting of European works and works of independent producers. The by-law act, the 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 a “European audiovisual work” or as a “work of an independent producer”. The obligations from this rulebook refer only to broadcasters with national coverage, while 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. More precisely, it specifies that the share of European audiovisual works in the broadcast programming is only allowed to include two broadcasts of each work (the premiere and the first rerun) in the course of one year, regardless of the year of production. European audiovisual works also include audiovisual works produced by the broadcasters themselves and Macedonian audiovisual works. For newly licensed TV broadcasters, Article 6 of the by-law act envisages a so called “progressive fulfillment 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, as follows:

- 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 each year, 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 budget (both for the production and for the purchasing of television programmes) to European audiovisual works produced by independent producers, while at least half of these should have been 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 fulfillment of this requirement in the previous year by 31 March of the following year at the latest.