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A decree dated 6 May 1998 amends the descriptions of duties and terms of reference of the public-service television channels France 2 and France 3, in an attempt to close the gap between the legal systems governing private channels and public-service channels, thereby making supervision by the regulatory body, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA) easier. The decree of 6 May covers firstly the relations between France 2 and France 3 and audiovisual producers. In 1997 these producers - through their main professional union, the audiovisual production union ( USPA - Union Syndicale de la...

The Italian Parliament has approved a law (hereafter called "the law") which, on the one hand, regulates the ways in which television programmes may be interrupted by commercial breaks and, on the other hand, transposes the provisions of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive (as amended by Directive 97/36/EC) which requires that national broadcasting in each EC Member State must contain a certain proportion of European production. The law also postpones the deadlines for the adoption of the national frequency plans and for the awards of new concessions for terrestrial television broadcasting....

In April the High Court in Dublin decided a case concerning radio and television broadcasts in relation to constitutional referendums. Under the Irish Constitution, there must be a referendum before any amendment to the Constitution can be made. In 1995 a referendum to remove the constitutional ban on divorce gave rise to much litigation regarding the conduct of referendum campaigns. Just before the referendum, the Supreme Court held that the government had acted unconstitutionally inter alia by offending the constitutional guarantee of equality- in spending public money on a one-sided information...

In February, the Slovak Parliament finally rejected a number of amendments to the Radio and Television Broadcasting Act, and also to the Slovak Television (STV) and Slovak Radio (SR) Acts. The proposed amendments were primarily intended to prevent any company or individual from using licences lawfully issued to other operators for their own broadcasting purposes. The key to this was a regulation under which bought material must never account for 100% of the total STV and SR programme. The Radio and Television Council of the Slovak Republic had warned Markísa-Slovakia LTD., owner of markisa TV,...

The Independent Television Commission (ITC) has - after long-running pressure - ruled to allow the use of masthead programming on UK terrestrial television channels. Presently, masthead programmes (programmes that feature the brand and editorial style of an existing publication) are only permitted on cable and satellite. The ITC announced also that it is to strengthen its rules to ensure that the further expansion of masthead programmes does not blur the distinction between editorial content and advertising. The changes to the Code of Programme Sponsorship (see IRIS 1997-4: 11) specify that programmes...