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On 1 January 1999 three new Acts replacing the Radio Equipment Act of 1927 and the Cable Transmission Act of 1987 came into force. The Acts also implement the Television without Frontiers Directive. The Act on Television and Radio Operations (Act 744/1998) generally seeks to promote television and radio broadcasting. It states, inter alia, that licences to operate television or radio broadcasting over the air shall be declared open for application and are to be granted - for a maximum period of ten years - by the government. The government will issue a plan on the use of frequencies. When granting...

On 17 December 1999, the Berlin Administrative Court ( Verwaltungsgericht - VG) held the practice followed by n-tv using a crawling display simultaneously with the normal picture for advertising purposes to be admissible. Since August 1998, the private news station n-tv had started running advertising material alongside stock prices in a crawling display on the lower part of the screen. The crawl strip was separated from the main programme by a red stripe. The advertising messages were preceded by two stars and the word "advertising" plus another star and closed off by the same sequence in reverse....

The prohibition of advertisements aimed at children on Swedish television has been subject to a judgment by the Market Court. In the "De Agostini case" two questions had to be considered by the Court. First, whether the Swedish prohibition of advertisements targeted at children constituted a violation of the free movement of services and, second, whether the Swedish rules on misleading advertisement could be applied to advertisements transmitted into Sweden from broadcasters established abroad. In 1997, the Court of Justice of the European Communities issued a preliminary ruling on the question...

In a discussion paper circulated to concerned parties on 2 December 1998, the Norwegian Ministry of Culture proposes that the public service broadcaster Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) should be allowed greater freedom to enter into commercial activities, on condition that the public service programme profile "will not be commercialised" and that business activities are not cross-subsidised from license fee income. Revenues from such activities must be recirculated into strengthening programme production. Current legislation prohibits advertising in NRK transmissions, i.e., in the two nation-wide...

The new Bulgarian Law on Radio and Television, which had been the subject of presidential veto ( see IRIS 1998-9: 1, 10-11) was re-voted in accordance with the procedure provided for in the Constitution and was finally adopted by the Bulgarian Parliament. The Law was promulgated and published on 24 November in the State Gazette. No significant changes have been made to the text of the Law. One of the most disputed provisions, which stipulates the total prohibition of advertisements on the National Television during the prime time until a private national TV operator is licensed, also remained unchanged...