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News bulletins of a duration of less than 30 minutes must not be interrupted by advertisement breaks. An amendment to Article 33 of the Radio and Television Stations Law 7(I)/1998 has put news bulletins on the list of programmes less than 30 minutes long, which must be free of advertisements and tele-shopping. These programmes include documentaries, current affairs, religious and children programmes. The amendment brings the law into line with the relevant provision of the Television without Frontiers Directive (Article 11, paragraph 5). The provision of the law in force before the current amendment...

Political parties and presidential candidates can place paid political advertisements on radio and television during the campaign period for parliamentary and presidential elections respectively. The amending law L.85(I)2006 of the Law on Radio and Television Stations of 1998, published in the official Gazette on 20 April 2006 provides that political advertising is allowed during the 40 days preceding the elections and must stop 55 hours before the start of voting. Their total duration can not exceed 100 minutes, which is limited to 30 minutes in the case of independent candidates to the parliament....

Television broadcasters are under an obligation to include in their programmes news bulletins for deaf persons. This is provided in the amending law L.84(I)2006 of the Law on Radio and Television Stations of 1998, published in the official Gazette on 20 April 2006. The special bulletins must be at least five minutes long and broadcast at least on half screen between 18:00h and 22:00h. Special bulletins for persons with hearing difficulties were broadcast on television channels long before the introduction of the above amendment of the law.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recently made public five new reports as part of the third cycle of its monitoring process of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2005-7: 3). Four of the country reports (Cyprus, Italy, Luxembourg and the Russian Federation) contain specific recommendations concerning the media. A recurrent, two-fold recommendation entails the ECRI encouraging the State authorities to: - “impress on the media, without encroaching on their editorial...

The Supreme Court (Revisional Jurisdiction) decided in December 2005 that the Cyprus Radio Television Authority (the independent regulator established by law 7(I)/1998) has no power to examine cases of potential breaches of the Journalists Code of Conduct unless the Media Complaints Commission (a self regulatory body established at the initiative of media professionals) requests it. By its verdict, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of a first instance Court on the issue, rejecting the appeal lodged by the Radio Television Authority. The case first came up in 2001, when the Authority sanctioned...