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In the run-up to the forthcoming Bundestag elections, the Direktorenkonferenz der Landesmedienanstalten (Congress of Land Media Authority Directors - DLM) has published a paper containing legal guidelines on important principles governing political party election broadcasts on national commercial television. Under Article 42.2 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement - RStV), political parties taking part in elections should, subject to certain conditions, be granted a reasonable amount of transmission time. Taking into account the relevant literature and case-law, the document...

On 11 June 2002, the respective governments of the German Bundesländer of Berlin and Brandenburg decided to authorise the merger of the two broadcasting authorities, Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) and Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB). The merger was officially confirmed by the Staatsvertrag über die Errichtung einer gemeinsamen Rundfunkanstalt (Inter-State Agreement on the establishment of a joint broadcasting authorityRBB-StV-E), which was signed on 25 June. The new body will be known as Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB). The broadcaster's official headquarters will be in Berlin and its director...

In a judgment of 4 June 2002, the Verwaltungsgericht (VG) Köln (Cologne Administrative Court) refused to issue a temporary order against broadcaster ARD, under which the latter would have been obliged to broadcast the football World Cup digitally via satellite. The Kirch Group had sold some of the broadcasting rights for the 2002 football World Cup in Germany to public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF. According to the contract, these rights only covered digital satellite broadcasting if it did not breach the exclusive broadcasting rights of licence-holders in other countries. However, satellite...

In a first instance ruling of 26 April, the Landgericht Hamburg (Hamburg District Court) decided that professional football clubs are entitled to charge radio broadcasters who report live or otherwise from their stadia. The private radio broadcaster Radio Hamburg therefore lost a test case in which it had claimed that the clubs had no transferable or exploitable "radio rights". On the contrary, the Hamburg District Court ruled that the clubs were entitled to control reporting from their respective stadia independently and that they therefore owned a commercial good which they were free to exploit....

In May, new efforts were undertaken to reform the regulatory measure concerning the protection of minors. Well-publicised proposals were made for an Inter-State Agreement on the protection of human dignity and minors in broadcasting and telemedia and for a new Jugendschutzgesetz (Youth Protection Act). Up to now, different provisions regulating the protection of minors have applied in the broadcasting, media services and tele-services sectors. Certain more general laws on the protection of young people (the Act on the dissemination of written material and media content harmful to minors, and the...