Search results : 120

The national film institutes of the 15 Member States of the European Union have made a common declaration on the importance of State aid for European films. This is the first time the film institutes have made a common statement. The national film institutes are publicly funded and were founded to support national and European film culture. In this common declaration the institutes express their concerns regarding the necessity for State aid for European films. The institutes are worried that the audio-visual sector in Europe will be left solely to the chances of free market forces. In the declaration,...

Swedish broadcaster Canal Plus broadcasts (English) Premier League football matches by satellite and cable. Virtual advertisements were displayed on each side of the goals during play and in the centre circle during intermissions. The messages were inserted, not by the broadcaster, but by the production company. In a recent decision, the Swedish Broadcasting Commission found that Canal Plus was the responsible broadcaster. It also found that the messages constituted television advertising and were thus in breach of the rules concerning the separation and insertion of advertising messages. This...

Ever since Sweden first allowed television advertising in 1991, the rule has been that advertisements must be placed between programmes. The purpose of designing the legislation in this manner was to protect the audience from excessive interruptions of programmes. However, broadcasters soon found a way around this by broadcasting mini-programmes, thus creating artificial intermissions. Television advertisements could then legally be placed in the intermissions. As a consequence, the "breaks" in the original programme became longer and, most likely, more irritating to the viewers. The fact that...

During the spring and summer of 2000 the Swedish national terrestrial channel TV4 broadcast more than ten programmes from the very popular children's series "Pokémon". When an episode was finished - and the message "to be continued" had been shown - the viewers were requested to keep their seats: "Don't leave yet. Now follows the Pokémon-rap". In this rap a selection of characters from the series are presented and the message "Gotta catch' em all" is repeated several times. When the rap is finished the programme ends with a billboard and the "Pokémon song". The Swedish Broadcasting Commission...

Acting on complaints from viewers, the Swedish Broadcasting Commission made two rulings on 15 June 2000 that put the present licensing system used by the Swedish Government into question. Kanal5 Ltd and TV3 Ltd both hold licenses issued by the British Independent Television Commission (ITC) for satellite transmissions. In both cases the broadcasts are directed towards the Swedish market and are in the Swedish language. In 1998 Kanal5 AB and TV3 AB received licenses from the Swedish Government to transmit digital terrestrial television. Both companies were established in Sweden and in both cases...