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The following facts were behind a recent decision of the Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court - VfGH): an advertising agency ordered a certain amount of airtime for TV commercials from the Austrian national public broadcaster Österreichische Rundfunk (ORF). The advertising slots were originally booked on behalf of a magazine publishing company; the advertising agency later asked the ORF to transfer most of the slots from the publishing company to the private radio broadcaster Antenne Wien . This request was turned down by the ORF with reference to its management's decision "not...

The European Commission has decided to authorise the creation of Eureka , a joint venture between Kirch and Mediaset . The main activities of Eureka will be in the areas of TV broadcasting, the sale of TV advertising, TV productions and the international distribution of TV rights. The Kirch group ( Kirch Media GmbH & Co. KgaA and Kirch Vermögensverwaltungs-GmbH & Co .) is one of the two major commercial media groups in Germany, and owns a wide range of broadcasting rights to films, TV programmes and sports events. Mediaset ( Mediaset S.p.A. and Medusa S.p.A. ) is an Italian commercial TV company...

On 26 June 1997, the European Commission adopted a decision (97/606/EC; see IRIS 1997-9: 4) according to which the exclusive right granted to VTM to operate Flemish-speaking commercial television was incompatible with Article 90, para. 1 of the EC Treaty (now Art. 86, para. 1) taken in conjunction with Article 52 of the Treaty (now Art. 43). As a result of this decision, in 1998 the Flemish Parliament amended the decree on the audiovisual sector by abolishing the exclusivity of the licenses granted to VTM (IRIS 1998-5: 13). Meanwhile, VTM applied to the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to...

The Council of Europe adopted on 9 September 1999 a Recommendation encouraging member States to ensure the free and fair coverage of elections campaigns by the media. It contains a catalogue of measures that are considered valuable in upholding democratic election standards and preserving freedom of expression at election time, whilst at the same time acknowledging the value of self-regulation by the media in this area. The Recommendation formulates as a general prescription that broadcasters (both public and private) should cover elections in a fair, balanced and impartial manner, ensuring that...

The Nordic countries have enacted legal rules and other regulatory texts concerning advertising in broadcasting which are broadly similar. All five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) have also largely implemented the recommendations on "Joint rules for television advertising", adopted by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1991, according to a recent report from the Nordic Council of Ministers. All Nordic countries subscribe to the principle that advertising must be clearly identifiable as such. They have all enacted legislation making ethical demands on advertisers,...