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At its 270th meeting in December 2022, the Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich (Commission on Concentration in the Media – KEK) decided that the proposed decisions of the relevant state media authorities concerning third-party broadcast times (Lower Saxony state media authority, RTL) and two regional windows (Hessen state media authority, RTL and Sat.1) were compatible with the rules designed to protect plurality of opinion. As a result, Germany’s two most popular broadcasters, RTL and Sat.1, will remain obliged to broadcast regional windows and provide broadcasting...

At its meeting on 19 October 2022, the Rundfunkkommission (Broadcasting Commission) of the German Länder expressed its views on the proposed European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). The draft Act had been published by the European Commission on 16 September. The EMFA is designed to protect media pluralism and independence in the EU. It also includes special rules for public service media and establishes an EU-wide media regulation authority. Its key objective is to protect the independence of the media and media professionals. It bans state interference, in particular direct and indirect state...

On 7 November 2022, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media – KJM) announced that it had approved another age verification system, which means there are now 102 KJM-approved age verification systems on the market. The latest system to be approved, known as “FaceAssure”, was devised by Privately SA. Machine learning was used to train it to estimate a person’s age based on their biometric features. In order to mitigate the fact that some young people look older than they really are, the KJM requires the system to...

At their meeting on 21 October 2022, the Minister-Presidents of the German Bundesländer adopted the 3. Medienänderungsstaatsvertrag (third state treaty amending the state media treaty), which, among other things, sets out the framework for public service broadcasting in Germany, defines the remit of the broadcasters that make up the ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio, and contains guidelines for jointly organised channels and additional services. At the heart of the reforms is a new definition of the remit of public broadcasters. Under their remit, the public broadcasters are to act as...

In a judgment of 25 August 2022 (case no. 3 K 606/21), the Verwaltungsgericht Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe Administrative Court) decided that the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) did not infringe third-party rights by informing journalists of its decisions before they were officially published. The Bundesverfassungsgericht gives full members of the Juristenpressekonferenz (conference of legal journalists) access to important decisions the evening before they are officially published. The Juristenpressekonferenz is a private association which, according to its statutes, is made...