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At the end of November 2008, the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) agreed to form a coalition government. They also adopted a government programme for the five-year parliamentary term. The Government is hoping to achieve the following media policy objectives between now and 2013: 1. The KommAustria media authority will be strengthened further. Rather than acting monocratically as it has up to now, its decisions will be taken in future by a media committee, a public broadcasting committee and two telecommunications committees. Additional committees may...

On 6 June 2008, the Italian Parliament converted into law the Decree-Law no. 59/2008 aiming at solving pending infringement procedures with regard to Community law. One of the procedures concerns the ineffectiveness, according to article 3, paragraph 2, of the Directive Television without Frontiers, of the existing provisions regulating the sanctioning procedures to be applied in case of violations of provisions on advertising. The Commission sent a letter of formal notice to Italy on 11 December 2007, pointing out that the height of the sanctions appeared not to be sufficiently dissuasive and...

On 30 November 2008, elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate will be taking place in Romania. In view of this, the Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului din România (Romanian National Audiovisual Council – CNA) adopted on 30 September 2008 Decision No. 792, which in addition to the existing legal rules (Electoral Law No. 35) and CNA regulations, lays down a number of “new principles and rules for the conduct of the election campaign by means of audiovisual programmes”. For the first time, the “candidaţi” (candidates) and the “competitori electorali” (election campaign participants)...

Following a consultation exercise carried out in summer 2008, the Broadcasting Authority has clarified the rules on surreptitious advertising and separation contained respectively in paragraphs 4 and 9 of the Third Schedule of the Broadcasting Act. These rules read as follows: “4. Advertising and teleshopping shall be readily distinguishable as such and kept quite separate from the other parts of the programme service by optical or acoustic means…” and “9. Surreptitious advertising shall be prohibited.” The clarifications state that when a person is invited during an informative slot on a radio...

The Authority has clarified that paragraph 13 of the Third Schedule to the Broadcasting Act applies to programmes and not to broadcasts aired during a given clock hour. Paragraph 13 provides that a period of 20 minutes has to elapse between each successive advertising break within a programme which is interrupted by advertising and teleshopping spots. The Authority has held that in the case of programmes which are of less than 20 minutes in duration (“short programmes”), it is permissible to have adverts at the beginning and/or at the end of the short programmes, even if 20 minutes have not elapsed...