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More than ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Bulgaria is about to get its first private television channel with nation-wide coverage. The licensed operator of this channel will be Balkan News Corporation, a company financed by Rupert Murdoch. The new television station will broadcast on the frequency of Efir 2, currently the state television's second channel. According to Bulgarian law, broadcasters have to apply for two different licenses. The so-called program license, is issued by the National Council on Radio and Television (NCRT), an independent body of experts. The second one,...

On 25 June 1999, the Constitutional Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Bulgarian Law on Radio and Television (LRT) that had been adopted a year ago (see IRIS 1999-1: 8). The case had been initiated by 52 Parliamentarians from the opposition. They had alleged that a large number of provisions of the LRT were in violation of the Constitution. The Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the State Commission on Telecommunications (SCT), the National Council for Radio and Television (NCRT), the Bulgarian National Television (BNT), the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) and the Bulgarian Media Coalition...

On 3 March 1999 Bulgaria ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Transfrontier Television, which will now enter into force for Bulgaria on 1 July 1999. The Convention was the first international treaty to establish a legal framework for the free circulation of transfrontier television programmes in Europe. It has been ratified by Austria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and in the Holy See and signed by Estonia, Greece, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,...

On 8 February a draft law that would amend the Penal Code was introduced to the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria. The draft Law provides changes to the highly disputed Section "Offence and aspersion" within the Penal Code. Concerned are those provisions, which currently provide different terms of jail for offence and aspersion and which had already been challenged in the Constitutional Court of Bulgaria as being directed against the journalists and the freedom of speech. Yet the Constitutional Court upheld the provisions and saw no violation of the Constitution or the European Convention...

The new Bulgarian Law on Radio and Television, which had been the subject of presidential veto ( see IRIS 1998-9: 1, 10-11) was re-voted in accordance with the procedure provided for in the Constitution and was finally adopted by the Bulgarian Parliament. The Law was promulgated and published on 24 November in the State Gazette. No significant changes have been made to the text of the Law. One of the most disputed provisions, which stipulates the total prohibition of advertisements on the National Television during the prime time until a private national TV operator is licensed, also remained unchanged...