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In a ruling of 6 June 2023, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH), the highest German civil court, examined the boundaries of film and photo-based reporting with victim protection in mind. It decided that public-service broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) had exceeded the limits of permissible reporting in a television programme broadcast in 2018 concerning two child abduction cases dating back to 1981 and 1980 by showing in particular letters and photographs of the abducted children, and playing audio recordings. Although there was high public interest in...

On 28 June 2023, the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein media authority – MA HSH), as the responsible media regulator, called on the company Google Ireland Ltd. to meet its new obligations under the German Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV). In its decision, it accused Google of failing to meet its legal obligation to ensure transparency for users on its YouTube platform by informing them about why they were being shown particular content. It is the first time a German media regulator has taken action against a global media intermediary...

Ruling in summary proceedings on 28 June 2023, the fourth civil chamber of the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart (Stuttgart Appeal Court) set aside the lower court’s decision to temporarily ban the distribution of the “Newszone” app by one of the German public broadcasting companies. However, the main reasons for its decision were formal rather than substantive, since, in accordance with the German Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV), the newspaper publishers that had complained about the app should have first initiated an arbitration procedure with the broadcaster...

On 25 May 2023, ruling on an appeal lodged by the Partei Mensch, Umwelt, Tierschutz (Animal Protection Party) against a decision favouring the Berlin-Brandenburg state broadcasting authority (rbb), the Oberverwaltungsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court) decided that rbb should have specifically mentioned the party’s share of the vote in the last Brandenburg state election (2.6% of second votes) in its post-election coverage rather than including it under the heading “Other”. The court based its ruling on political parties’ constitutional...

In May 2023, two German media regulators published reports examining past and ongoing challenges in the fields of youth protection and the safeguarding of diversity in the media. On 12 May, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media – KJM) published its 10th activity report covering the period from March 2021 to February 2023. Meanwhile, the Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich (Commission on Concentration in the Media – KEK) published its 24th annual report, covering 2022, on 15 May. According to the KJM’s...