Search results : 149

With many commercial radio licences due to expire in 2001, the Broadcasting Council issued new licences at the end of June. In contrast to the new version (see IRIS 2001-7: 8), the previous Broadcasting Act, which was valid until 3 July 2001, made no provision for broadcasting licences to be extended. Most of the licences issued in June were awarded to existing licence-holders on the basis of the old Broadcasting Act, although nobody is automatically entitled to a licence. Under the previous Act, the Broadcasting Council had to consider the maintenance of diversity of opinion and support for the...

The Broadcasting Council, which monitors broadcasting in the Czech Republic, has imposed fines on several Czech TV broadcasters. In one case, broadcasters repeatedly showed an advertisement for a brand of sweet, in which a girl threw her doll at a car at a street crossing so that the activated airbags trapped the car's occupants against the back of their seats. The girl then took a sweet from the hand of an astonished woman sitting in the car. A voice then said: "(name of brand) - when you must, you must". In the Broadcasting Council's view, this advertisement was aimed at minors and encouraged...

The first Prague District Court has acquitted a former TV reporter after a case lasting 18 months. The public prosecutor's office had taken proceedings against him for revealing state secrets, an offence punishable under criminal law by a prison sentence of two to eight years. The journalist was accused two years ago of showing viewers a secret document, thus threatening the national interest and endangering an official's life by possibly revealing his identity. The secret document also contained details of an attempt by the current head of the security service to protect an official who had apparently...

The Parliament of the Czech Republic has passed a new Broadcasting Act, against which the President of the Republic has exercised his veto. He rejected the Act because it prevented competition by more or less entitling current broadcasters to have their licences automatically extended. However, the second parliamentary chamber overturned the veto on 26 June 2001. The Act is designed to transpose Directive 89/552/EEC on the Co-ordination of certain Provisions laid down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States concerning the Pursuit of Television Broadcasting Activities, as amended...

In March 2001, the Public Prosecutor's Office abandoned its criminal action against two daily newspaper journalists (under Czech criminal law, the public prosecutor can decide, after an investigation, whether a case should be brought before a court or abandoned). The journalists had reported on an alleged attempt to discredit a popular government politician, which was said to have come from within her own party. The report had been the subject of libel proceedings. Both journalists had been called as witnesses and had refused, under the terms of the Press Act, to divulge the source of their information....