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On 17 October 2023, the Saarland state parliament adopted a law modernising Saarland media law. Under the reform, a separate law concerning the public service broadcaster Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR) was created, with structural changes to its management and internal control. Meanwhile, the provisions relating to the supervisory body, the Landesmedienanstalt Saarland (LMS), were amended, including changes to its governing bodies and director election procedure as well as the broadening of its remit. SR is one of the nine regional public service broadcasters in Germany. Under the amendment,...

On 10 October 2023, the German Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities) published their new transparency-related FAQs for media intermediaries. The FAQs are designed to explain to intermediary services, i.e. mainly search engines and social networks, how they can meet their transparency obligations under the 2020 Medienstaatsvertrag (state media treaty – MStV). They also stress that these rules, which promote media diversity, apply regardless of the entry into force of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which also contains transparency obligations for online platforms and search engines...

In a ruling of 11 October 2023 (case no. 11 A 185/21), the Schleswig-Holsteinische Verwaltungsgericht (Schleswig-Holstein Administrative Court) overturned a decision of the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein media authority – MA HSH) alleging a breach of human dignity and programming guidelines by private broadcaster Sat.1. The MA HSH had ruled that a sequence in the real-life documentary series “Lebensretter hautnah – Wenn jede Sekunde zählt” showing a person who had suffered a serious seizure had been voyeuristic and sensationalist,...

In a ruling issued in summary proceedings on 16 August 2023, the Verwaltungsgericht Minden (Minden Administrative Court – VG) decided that a YouTube blogger who wishes to report on a court case concerning himself is entitled to protection under the freedom of the press. The court also allowed him to take the equipment that he needed to produce reports into the court building. The decision concerned a court procedure involving the YouTube blogger at the Landgericht Bielefeld (Bielefeld District Court – LG), which he wanted to report on via his YouTube channel. To do this, he intended...

On 31 August 2023, VAUNET, the umbrella organisation of private audio and audiovisual media companies in Germany, published its annual report, “Pay-TV and Paid-VoD in Germany” for 2022/2023. The report states that overall revenues for pay-TV and paid video-on-demand (VOD) in Germany rose by around 5% to EUR 4.9 billion in 2022. VAUNET predicts that they will grow by a further 8% to EUR 5.3 billion in 2023, breaking the EUR 5 billion barrier for the first time. In the German-speaking region (Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland), revenue increased by approximately 4% to...