Television broadcasting activities. 'Television without frontiers'

In adopting the recommendation for second reading by Mr GALEOTE QUECEDO (PPE, E) and Mr HOPPENSTEDT (PPE, D) on the revision of the 1989 'Television without frontiers' directive, the European Parliament has finally allied itself very comprehensively with the Council's position. For want of a large enough majority, Parliament was unable to follow its Committee on Culture in changing certain significant aspects of the text regarding the directive's scope, the compulsory application of quotas, counting studio broadcasts in quotas, rules on relocations, the time given to advertising, the application of more stringent rules with regard to realizing language policy objectives, taking account of the general interest, safeguarding pluralism of information and the media, protection of competition. The amendments aimed at extending the directive's field of application to the 'new services', i.e. television 'on demand', were also rejected. On the other hand, Parliament: - referred expressly to the possibility of financial penalties for Member States which do not comply with the directive; - called for access for everyone to broadcasts of events of particular importance and general interest, including sporting events; - strengthened the provisions relating to protection of minors, stressing: (a) the need to avoid inclusion of advertisements or trailers likely to do them serious psychological damage; (b) the requirement to equip all television sets with a programme filtering device within a time limit of one year. �