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Inquiries into the handling of two separate investigations into alleged child abuse by the BBC’s flagship programme Newsnight have found serious compliance and cultural problems. As a result of the second problem, the BBC’s Director-General was forced to resign. The first issue concerned the decision to drop an investigation into alleged child abuse by Jimmy Saville, a former disc jockey who had died on 29 October 2011. Newsnight commenced an investigation based on allegations by victims, including that the police had dropped their own investigation because of Saville’s age. However, the story...

In the opinion of the Swiss Bundesgericht (Federal Tribunal), the Swiss public service broadcaster Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft (SRG) breached the youth protection rules contained in broadcasting legislation by showing a television report about the brutal film genre known as “gore”. The report, lasting around two and a half minutes, had been broadcast on 6 July 2011 at 7.50 p.m. during the evening news bulletin of the SRG channel Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR) and concerned the NIFFF film festival in Neuchâtel that was underway at the time. As well as an interview with the gore...

On 6 and 8 November 2012, the Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului (National Council for Electronic Media - CNA) imposed severe sanctions on four commercial Romanian television stations (PRO TV, Acasă TV, Kanal D and Antena 1) for violating the law on audiovisual services. Three stations (PRO TV, Kanal D, Antena 1) were obliged to interrupt their programmes and to broadcast for 10 minutes the text of the CNA’s sanctions. The fourth channel, Acasă TV, was fined RON 100,000 (about EUR 22,000), the second biggest legal financial sanction ever imposed. Acasă TV also was obliged to interrupt its programme...

On 5 September 2012 the Polish Government presented to the Parliament its draft Act amending the Broadcasting Act. This amendment aims at the full transposition of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) into national law. The proposal basically concerns content regulation of on-demand audiovisual media services (video on demand - VoD). Provisions regarding linear services had been implemented earlier (see IRIS 2010-8/41). Poland thus follows the European Commission’s assessment that the Polish implementation of the AVMSD was not sufficient (see IRIS 2012-8/6, IRIS 2011-5/5, and IRIS 2010-8/4). On...

On 15 October 2012, the Minister for Communication and Media of Luxembourg published a bill on the creation of the Independent Audiovisual Authority of Luxembourg and modifying several laws (Bill ALIA). The Bill ALIA is now in the legislative procedure at the Chambre des Députés (Luxembourg Parliament). The reform of the Luxembourg media authorities has been debated for a few years and there had already been an earlier draft in 2008 that was retracted (Projet de loi N° 5959). Due to an increased workload stemming from the adaptation of the national legal framework to the EU Audiovisual Media Services...