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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...

The German Filmförderungsanstalt (Federal Film Board – FFA) has published an updated evaluation report on the revenue generated by the FFA film levy. The report describes the film levy system and the amount of revenue it generated between 2012 and 2022, examines the market sectors relevant to the film industry and looks ahead to how current payers of the levy and the market as a whole might develop between now and 2029. Following the decision to extend the German Filmförderungsgesetz (Film Support Act – FFG) until the end of 2024, the FFA has now updated the report that was...

In a ruling of 6 June 2023, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH), the highest German civil court, examined the boundaries of film and photo-based reporting with victim protection in mind. It decided that public-service broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) had exceeded the limits of permissible reporting in a television programme broadcast in 2018 concerning two child abduction cases dating back to 1981 and 1980 by showing in particular letters and photographs of the abducted children, and playing audio recordings. Although there was high public interest in...

On 28 June 2023, the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein media authority – MA HSH), as the responsible media regulator, called on the company Google Ireland Ltd. to meet its new obligations under the German Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV). In its decision, it accused Google of failing to meet its legal obligation to ensure transparency for users on its YouTube platform by informing them about why they were being shown particular content. It is the first time a German media regulator has taken action against a global media intermediary...

Ruling in summary proceedings on 28 June 2023, the fourth civil chamber of the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart (Stuttgart Appeal Court) set aside the lower court’s decision to temporarily ban the distribution of the “Newszone” app by one of the German public broadcasting companies. However, the main reasons for its decision were formal rather than substantive, since, in accordance with the German Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV), the newspaper publishers that had complained about the app should have first initiated an arbitration procedure with the broadcaster...