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RTL Television, the German subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based RTL Group, has withdrawn a complaint to the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) against a decision of the Oberlandesgericht Celle (Celle Appeal Court - OLG). The proceedings concerned the forfeiture of income earned from illegal advertising. In 1997, the OLG had ruled in the last instance that RTL could not take advantage of the more relaxed regulations governing series when calculating the maximum permissible number of commercial breaks (see IRIS 1997-7: 11). The relevant media supervisory body, the Niedersächsische...

In July 2004 the European Commission initiated state aid proceedings against the Federal Republic of Germany in accordance with Article 88 (2) of the EC Treaty with respect to the examination of the financing of DVB-T in Berlin-Brandenburg (see IRIS 2004-6: 5) . The complaint concerns the subsidies (the so-called Ausgleichsgebühr), paid to broadcasters by the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg media authority - mabb). These subsidies represent 30% of the transmission fee that private broadcasters have to pay to the operator of the DVB-T network (T-Systems). As part of a frequency...

On 22 June 2004 an agreement was signed between Germany and Canada concerning audiovisual relations between the two countries. A similar agreement signed in 1978 is no longer in force. The aim of the new agreement is to create the necessary environment for German/Canadian co-productions in the film, television and video sectors, with a view to promoting the German and Canadian film industries and encouraging cultural and economic exchanges. The German and Canadian governments are also convinced the agreement will strengthen relations between the two countries. The agreement itself contains several...

In May 2004, the Gemeinsame Stelle Digitaler Zugang (Joint Digital Access Office - GSDZ) of the Landesmedienanstalten (Land media authorities) published a paper on the navigator standards set out in Art. 53 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement). The Agreement defines navigators as "systems ... which control the selection of television programmes and which are used as user interfaces for all services offered via that system". According to the GSDZ document, they therefore include all navigation systems which act as user interfaces once the viewer has switched on their...

In a ruling of 24 June 2004, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) confirmed that a so-called television advertising blocker was admissible under competition law (see IRIS 1999-10: 7). The dispute between a private TV broadcaster funded through commercial advertising and the defendant concerned a device produced and sold by the latter, which could be connected to a TV or video recorder. This device automatically switches to a channel without advertisements whenever there is a commercial break on the selected channel. At the end of the advertisements, the device switches back to the...