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No final decision has yet been taken on the future of advertising for private betting services in Germany. In a ruling of 28 March 2006, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG ) had decided that, in its current form, the state's sports betting monopoly in the Bundesland of Bavaria was incompatible with the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) (see IRIS 2006-6:8). According to subsequent BVerfG decisions of 4 July 2006 (case no. 1 BvR 138/05) and 2 August 2006 (case no. 1 BvR 2677/04), the same applied to the state's sports betting monopolies in Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia....

The public service broadcasters in Germany have agreed not to include short reports of the Sunday matches in the German football Bundesliga in their main news programmes. Neither the "Tagesschau" news programme at 8 pm nor the "heute-journal" at 9.45 pm will show footage of the Sunday matches, and viewers will only see the results and league tables. In an agreement with the German Football League (DFL), the broadcasters are contractually bound not to show any match action before 11 pm. In principle, all licensed TV broadcasters in Europe are entitled, under Art. 5 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State...

Satellite operator SES-ASTRA, the RTL broadcasting group and MTV-Networks reached an agreement on 2 August 2006 under which the satellite transmission of the participating broadcasters' programmes will be encrypted and users will be charged a monthly fee of EUR 3.50, officially for the use of a "digital infrastructure". Originally, these measures were due to take effect from the first half of 2007. However, it was recently announced that SES-ASTRA has postponed the launch of encryption until the period between the third quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2008 because the co-operation between...

Following the latest contracts agreed with broadcasters ARD/ZDF, CNN, ProSiebenSat1 and RTL concerning their inclusion in the IPTV service T-Home, more than 100 channels are now available via Deutsche Telekom's VDSL high-speed network. The regional channels operated by the public service broadcasters will also be fed into the VDSL network, which enables Deutsche Telekom to offer "triple play", ie bundled Internet, telephone and television services. Telekom has invested more than EUR 3 billion in the new network, which will be available in 50 cities by the middle of next year. Viewers do not have...

In the continuing debate over the level of the broadcasting fee to be introduced for Internet PCs on 1 January 2007, the ARD directors decided at their general meeting in Schwerin to propose that owners of an Internet PC or a UMTS mobile telephone be charged a monthly fee of EUR 5.52 from 1 January 2007. Private households which already pay a TV or radio licence fee are exempt from the new regulation. The amount to be charged is based on the sum paid by owners of devices capable of receiving radio transmissions, known as the “ Grundgebühr ”. The ARD directors wish to take account of the fact that...