European Television: Opportunity or Illusion?

Inhalt

I. EUROPEAN TV: OPPORTUNITY OR ILLUSION?

II. EUROPEAN UNION MEDIA SUPERVISION
II.1. Competition supervision
a. Structure and functions according to the European Law supervisory bodies
b. Legislative framework in the broadcasting and new media sectors
c. Important legislative acts
d. Competition legislation
II.2. Supported Guidelines by the European Union:

III. EUROPEAN TELEVISION PROJECTS
III.1. Eurikon
III.2. Europe-TV (working title: Olympus)
a. What were the intentions for Europe-TV?
b. Why did Europe-TV stopped so fast?

IV. THE EXAMPLE: ARTE
IV.1. Problems of ARTE:
a. Financial problems:
b. The language problem:
c. Concurrence from other television channels:

V. CONCLUSION:

I. EUROPEAN TV: OPPORTUNITY OR ILLUSION?

Foreword:

With the European Union and the growing importance of Media, it is quite obvious to think of a European Channel, which could bring different European cultures, interests and peoples together. As one can look at this complex topic from many different angles, we would like to divide our work into three parts in order to make it as structured and as understandable as possible.

The first part consists of guidelines, regulations and restrictions by the European Union, discussing the different interest of the European Union and the individual Member States concerning media issues.

In the second part we introduce two former European TV projects, which failed because of several problems, such as cultural differences.

Finally we focus on ARTE, the Franco-German corporation, which is an example of cross-cultural communication within Europe by creating a European cultural channel. We give a short overview and discuss the difficulties, which can rise because of intercultural differences.

Throughout the paper we try to get to an answer whether European TV is an Opportunity or an Illusion?

II. EUROPEAN UNION MEDIA SUPERVISION

The European Union has already created a media structure,

which is able to satisfy future needs. The European Commission is running a reform of communication regulations especially within the former EC “TV without borders” Directive.

We will first explain the structure and the functions of the authorities and the laws concerning the concentration.

II.1. Competition supervision

a. Structure and functions according to the European Law supervisory bodies

The media supervision is divided into three sectors:

- telecommunication supervision
- communication supervision
- concentration and competition supervision

Nevertheless, the European Commission cannot check the communication and the telecommunication ones.

The TV regulation body is the CETT (Convention Européenne de la Télévision Transfrontiere) built in 1989. The main goal is:

- to facilitate expression freedom
- to promote European culture
- to encourage European audiovisual productions ?? to offer to the public a complete TV service and a good quality.

Concerning competition, there is a European law (Article 85, paragraph 1)

b. Legislative framework in the broadcasting and new media sectors

In the community law, there are some regulatory principles in the media, information and audiovisual sectors in order to help national control bodies.

This law is really important for consumer protection and data one. Moreover, the fight against illegal contents and prejudicial. The TV plays an important cultural and social role and brings information, so it can influence the information. That is why the European Community decided early to set up common principles.

In 1999, those principles has been presented to the Commission Communication and confirmed by the Council and the parliament.

The basis of European TV rules is the protection of the common values (freedom of opinion, promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity as ARTE, the protection of authors and their work, the minor protection, human dignity protection and consumers protection).

The European Union “TV without frontiers” agreement tries to create a harmonization of the individual national agreements. But in practise, if one wants to broadcast a programme, the national channels sometimes do not respect the EU agreement and still obtain their national agreements.

If we want that the principles of mutual recognition work, we have the harmonisation of domestic law.

Although the article 10 of ECHR (European Convention of Human Rights) is aware of protecting freedom of opinion and information, this article cannot be used as basis to take legal measures.

c. Important legislative acts

Concerning the “TV without frontiers”, the European Commission tries to build up a free movement of services between member states. It controls finance and the contents of the programmes, the independence of cultural development within the member states and preservation of cultural diversity remain preserved. “TV without frontiers” directive imposes minimum standards for a harmonisation in certain areas such as quotas, TV advertising, sponsorship, TV-shopping and protection of minors. It does not mention the structure of the corresponding supervisory bodies

The importance of the Council of Europe, in December 2000, increased. They control political and economic matters, but there is still no complete harmonisation, as Media issues are missing.

d. Competition legislation

On European level, the rules are aimed to support and safeguard the domestic market. According to the Article 3 of the EC treaty, this market is characterised by the abolition of the obstacles to the free movement of goods, person, services and capital between the states members. It is also characterised by competition, which must be protected in order to prevent distortion through state or private measures.

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