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On 14 April 1999 the leaders of the State and Senate Chancelleries of the German Bundesländer agreed to amend the Agreement between Federal States on Broadcasting (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag - RStV), which regulates public and private broadcasting in the Federal Republic of Germany. In view of the need to transpose the provisions of the revised "Television without Frontiers" Directive into domestic law, the discussions initiated in January 1998 concerning a revised Agreement (see IRIS 1998-3:10) were concluded. The Land presidents will make a final decision on the amendments on 24 June 1999. Then, once...

In the context of the German EU Council Presidency, an expert seminar on «voluntary self-regulation in the media sector at the European level» was held in Saarbrücken 19-21 April 1999. Discussions took place in two working groups. The first one dealt with «self-regulation within the framework of national media systems from the point of view of the European Community», whereas the second one discussed the «requirements and chances of self-regulation in the European Community». The originally intended designation of the final document as «Saarbrücken Declaration» gave rise to objections from some...

Austria is playing an increasingly prominent role in the protection of children in the European Union. Following the amendment of the "Television Without Frontiers" Directive, which led to the introduction on 1 January 1999 of visual identification of programmes considered unsuitable for young persons (see IRIS 1999-1:9), a symposium on the theme "Violence in the Media" was held on 10 March 1999. The symposium, attended by experts from Austria and abroad, was organized by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ( ORF), the Federal Ministry of Environment, and Youth and Family. It was divided into...

The Independent Television Commission (ITC), the UK regulator of private broadcasting, has fined a cable company £10,000 for breaches of its Rules on the Amount and Scheduling of Advertising in relation to local advertising. The amount of the fine is relatively small compared to some other recent fines levied by the Commission (£2,000,000 in one other recent case) but it does show the importance of financial penalties even in the case of relatively minor breaches. The company, Telewest, had been given a formal warning by the ITC in March 1998 after three incidents when complaints were upheld about...

On 17 March 1999 the Flemish Parliament has voted for a modification of the Flemish Broadcasting decree in order to institute effective control over the programmes mentioned in Article 22 of the Television Without Frontiers Directive (protection of minors). Until now the Flemish Government was the competent body to ensure that no television programmes contained harmful content with regard to minors. It had become obvious, however, that in practice the Government was not able to fulfil this task. According to Article 22 of the Television Without Frontiers Directive, the Member States must take appropriate...