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On 2 April 1996 the Dutch Parliament approved the proposed change to the Media Act, which now allows commercial broadcasting local and regional level. This result is attained by removing the limitation that commercial broadcasters have to broadcast nationwide. The new Media Act also renders permanent the up to 1 January 1996 experimental advertising regime, by which the local and regional broadcasters were allowed to broadcast advertisements and keep the advertising income themselves. Furthermore, the modified Media Act appoints the Dutch Media Authority supervisory power in conflicts concerning...

In IRIS 1996-2: 14 we reported that the Holland Media Group SA (HMG) had decided to shut down its television channel RTL5 following the decision taken by the European Commission of 20 September requiring HMG to sell RTL5. In reaction to the decision, Mr Karel van Miert, the Commissioner responsible for competition matters, indicated that this constituted a new situation in which the Commission would have to reconsider its initial point of view. In the meantime, as we report elsewhere in this issue of IRIS a new private commercial television channel is being established in the Netherlands, i.e.,...

The Dutch Football Federation ( KNVB ) sold the broadcasting rights for its leagues to a new commercial broadcasting channel, Sport 7, which will specialise in sports. The new station is set to start this August. The channel is jointly owned by several investors, under which Philips, ING Bank, production company EndeMol and the Dutch Football Federation, KNVB (10% share). The public broadcasters that lost out by this decision, represented by the coordinator NOS, have threatened to ask for a judicial review to sell the broadcasting rights to a third party, but the NOS has not yet taken any action...

In a verdict in summary judgment of 12 March 1996, the President of the District Court of The Hague ruled that Internet Providers can, in principle, not be held responsible for wrongful acts of users, e.g. copyright infringements by third parties. The Church of Scientology had issued a writ against 22 Internet Providers and one Internet User. The Church claimed that defendents had infringed upon the copyrights on the Church's 'religious materials', by making them available on Internet. The President dismissed the claim regarding the Internet-user, writer Karin Spaink, because she had replaced the...

On 31 January 1996, the Holland Media Group (HMG) announced that it would close down its commercial television channel RTL5. This decision follows the decision taken by European Commission on 20 September 1995 ( see: IRIS 1995-9:5) that in its current form, the Dutch TV joint venture Holland Media Groep SA (HMG) cannot be approved under Council Regulation (EEC) Nr 4064/89 on the control of concentrations between undertakings. HMG is a joint venture between RTL4 S.A. (RTL), Veronica and Endemol Entertainment. The parent companies of RTL are the Luxembourg broadcasting group CLT and the Dutch publishing...