Search results : 1381

According to media reports, the Landgericht Aachen (Aachen Regional Court) ruled in a decision of 24 May 2016 (Case 8 O 168/16) that the planned filming of the Gladbeck hostage drama was within the law, and the personality rights of the person convicted of the hostage-taking and murder were no obstacle to carrying out the project. In August 1988, the hostage-taker and another perpetrator robbed a bank in Gladbeck. While they were on the run through Germany and the Netherlands, two hostages and a police officer were killed. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1991 by the Landgericht Essen...

The Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) ruled, in a judgment of 22 June 2016 (Case 6 C 9.15), that a broadcaster is in breach of the ban on surreptitious advertising if it fails to identify advertising content in one of its programmes when the purpose of the programme does not provide sufficient justification for this. The plaintiff, which operates the TV channel “Sport1”, aired the programme “Learn from the Pros”, originally produced for the American TV market, in which professional poker players provide tips for playing the game. The plaintiff had acquired the programme...

At its meeting in Halle on 26 April 2016, the Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht (Commission on Licensing and Supervision - ZAK) of the Landesmedienanstalten (Regional Media Authorities) reached a decision on breaches of advertising rules. It criticised three cases of unlawful product placement and two involving the inadequate separation of advertising and programming content. The three cases of unlawful product placement it criticised were in the TV show “Germany’s Next Topmodel” on the ProSieben channel operated by ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland GmbH. In the media watchdogs’ opinion, the focus...

In a judgment of 1 March 2016 (Case 5 K 977/14.NW), the Verwaltungsgericht (Administrative Court) in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse declared lawful the extension granted by the Rhineland-Palatinate Landeszentrale für Media und Kommunikation (Regional Media and Communication Authority - LMK) to the licence for the regional window programme “17:30 Sat.1 live”, which is made by the TV production company TV IIIa GmbH & Co. KG (TV Illa) and forms part of the schedule of the commercial broadcaster Sat.1. Under section 25(4) of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement), in order to foster...

In a decision of 12 April 2016 (Case 324 O 96/16), the Landgericht Hamburg (Hamburg District Court) issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the broadcasting of a television programme produced by a team of reporters that had set itself the task of revealing serious shortcomings in companies. In this particular case, the programme “Team Wallraff - Reporter undercover” of the broadcaster RTL wanted to show sloppy working practices in a hospital caused by pressure to keep costs down. In order to do this, a female reporter infiltrated the hospital disguised as a trainee and produced footage broadcast...