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Following working group discussions lasting several months, the Federal cabinet adopted, on 24 August, a plan for the introduction of digital radio in Germany. A complete switch of all television transmissions to the new technology is accordingly planned for the year 2010 at the latest ; for radio, digital reception is to be available alongside analogue no later than early 1999. All interested parties - programme and service providers, network operators, the regional authorities, television and radio set manufacturers, consumers, representatives of trade and commerce - took part in the preparations...

Under Section 7, para. 3 of the Agreement between the Federal States on Broadcasting ( Rundfunkstaatsvertrag - RFStV), television advertising must, using visual means, be clearly separated from other parts of the programme. For private television establishments this regulation is amplified by extensive provisions from the guidelines of the regional media authorities. With the introduction of new advertising formats, the problem of unambiguously identifying television advertising and separating it from the rest of the programme has become a very topical issue. The news broadcaster n-tv has, on...

In a judgment given on 27 January 1998, the Berlin Administrative Court upheld a television company's appeal against a Media Authority decision instructing it to indicate, at the beginning and in the course of a programme, that it was an extended advertising programme. The programme in question presented Berlin restaurants and hotels, none of which paid to be featured. The term "advertising programme" is defined neither in the National Broadcasting Agreement nor in the broadcasting law of the Länder. In deciding whether advertising was involved, the Court relied on Article 1 (b) of Directive...

In separate judgments, the Federal Court and the Constitutional Court recently decided that protection of freedom of opinion, guaranteed by Article 5, para. 1 of the Basic Law, took precedence over protection of personality rights, guaranteed by Article 2, para. 1, in conjunction with Article 1, para. 1. The Federal Court's judgment of 16 June 1996 was concerned with an application by the President of the Land Brandenburg (Ministerpräsident) for an injunction against the author of allegations that he had "for over 20 years, worked informally for the State Security Service (of the German Democratic...

In late July, the Director of the ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), issued a policy directive on the structure and assessment of " ZDF.online", the on-line service which the station runs in co-operation with the American Microsoft company. The ZDF's on-line involvement has been criticised on several scores. Magazine and newspaper publishers object, above all, to the fact that its Internet pages also carry regional news and information, while private operators and programme organisers object to its deriving advertising revenue from the new on-line market (as a public-service channel, it gets most...