1998. évi XLIX. törvény
a határokat átlépő televíziózásról szóló, Strasbourgban, 1989. május 5-én kelt európai egyezmény kihirdetéséről1
(A megerősítő okirat letétbe helyezése 1996. szeptember 2-án megtörtént.)
1. § Az Országgyűlés a határokat átlépő televíziózásról szóló, Strasbourgban, 1989. május 5-én kelt Egyezményt e törvénnyel kihirdeti.
2. § Az Egyezmény eredeti angol nyelvű szövege és annak hiteles magyar nyelvű fordítása a következő:
„TEXT OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON TRANSFRONTIER TELEVISION
PREAMBLE
The member States of the Council of Europe and the other States party to the European Cultural Convention, signatory hereto;
Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members, for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage;
Considering that the dignity and equal worth of every human being constitute fundamental elements of those principles;
Considering that the freedom of expression and information, as embodied in Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, constitutes one of the essential principles of a democratic society and one of the basic conditions for its progress and for the development of every human being;
Reaffirming their commitment to the principles of the free flow of information and ideas and the independence of broadcasters, which constitute an indispensable basis for their broadcasting policy;
Affirming the importance of broadcasting for the development of culture and the free formation of opinions in conditions safeguarding pluralism and equality of opportunity among all democratic groups and political parties;
Convinced that the continued development of information and communication technology should serve to further the right, regardless of frontiers, to express, to seek, to receive and to impart information and ideas whatever their source;
Being desirous to present an increasing range of choice of programme services for the public, thereby enhancing Europe’s heritage and developing its audiovisual creation, and being determined to achieve this cultural objective through efforts to increase the production and circulation of high-quality programmes, thereby responding to the public’s expectations in the political, educational and cultural fields;
Recognising the need to consolidate the common broad framework of regulation;
Bearing in mind Resolution No. 2 and the Declaration of the 1st European Ministerial Conference on Mass Media Policy;
Being desirous to develop the principles embodied in the existing Council of Europe Recommendations on principles on television advertising, on equality between women and men in the media, on the use of satellite capacity for television and sound radio, and on the promotion of audiovisual production in Europe,
Have agreed as follows:
Chapter I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1
Object and purpose
This Convention is concerned with programme services embodied in transmissions. The purpose is to facilitate, among the Parties, the transfrontier transmission and the retransmission of television programme services.
Article 2
Terms employed
For the purposes of this Convention:
a) „Transmission” means the initial emission by terrestrial transmitter, by cable, or by satellite of whatever nature, in encoded or unencoded form, of television programme services for reception by the general public. It does not include communication services operating on individual demand;
b) „Retransmission” signifies the fact of receiving and simultaneously transmitting, irrespective of the technical means employed, complete and unchanged television programme services, or important parts of such services, transmitted by broadcasters for reception by the general public;
c) „Broadcaster” means the natural or legal person who composes television programme services for reception by the general public and transmits them or has them transmitted, complete and unchanged, by a third party;
d) „Programme service” means all the items within a single service provided by a given broadcaster within the meaning of the preceding paragraph;
e) „European audiovisual works” means creative works, the production or co-production of which is controlled by European natural or legal persons;
f) „Advertisement” means any public announcement intended to promote the sale, purchase or rental of a product or service, to advance a cause or idea or to bring about some other effect desired by the advertiser, for which transmission time has been given to the advertiser for remuneration or similar consideration;
g) „Sponsorship” means the participation of a natural or legal person, who is not engaged in broadcasting activities or in the production of audiovisual works, in the direct or indirect financing of a programme with a view to promoting the name, trademark or image of that person.
Article 3
Field of application
This Convention shall apply to any programme service transmitted or retransmitted by entities or by technical means within the jurisdiction of a Party, whether by cable, terrestrial transmitter or satellite, and which can be received, directly or indirectly, in one or more other Parties.
Article 4
Freedom of reception and retransmission
The Parties shall ensure freedom of expression and information in accordance with Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and they shall guarantee freedom of reception and shall not restrict the retransmission on their territories of programme services which comply with the terms of this Convention.
Article 5
Duties of the transmitting Parties
1. Each transmitting Party shall ensure, by appropriate means and through its competent organs, that all programme services transmitted by entities or by technical means within its jurisdiction, within the meaning of Article 3, comply with the terms of this Convention.
2. For the purposes of this Convention, the transmitting Party shall be:
a) in the case of terrestrial transmissions, the Party in which the initial emission is effected;
b) in the case of satellite transmissions:
(i) the Party in which the satellite up-link is situated;
(ii) the Party which grants the use of the frequency or a satellite capacity when the up-link is situated in a State which is not a Party to this Convention;
(iii) the Party in which the broadcaster has its seat when responsibility under sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) is not established.
3. When programme services transmitted from States which are not Parties to this Convention are retransmitted by entities or by technical means within the jurisdiction of a Party, within the meaning of Article 3, that Party, acting as transmitting Party, shall ensure, by appropriate means and through its competent organs, compliance with the terms of this Convention.
Article 6
Provision of information
1. The responsibilities of the broadcaster shall be clearly and adequately specified in the authorisation issued by, or contract concluded with, the competent authority of each Party, or by any other legal measure.
2. Information about the broadcaster shall be made available, upon request, by the competent authority of the transmitting Party. Such information shall include, as a minimum, the name or denomination, seat and status of the broadcaster, the name of the legal representative, the composition of the capital, the nature, purpose and mode of financing of the programme service the broadcaster is providing or intends providing.
Chapter II
PROGRAMMING MATTERS
Article 7
Responsibilities of the broadcaster
1. All items of programme services, as concerns their presentation and content, shall respect the dignity of the human being and the fundamental rights of others.
In particular, they shall not:
a) be indecent and in particular contain pornography;
b) give undue prominence to violence or be likely to incite to racial hatred.
2. All items of programme services which are likely to impair the physical, mental or moral development of children and adolescents shall not be scheduled when, because of the time of transmission and reception, they are likely to watch them.
3. The broadcaster shall ensure that news fairly presents facts and events and encourages the free formation of opinions.
Article 8
Right of reply
1. Each transmitting Party shall ensure that every natural or legal person, regardless of nationality or place of residence, shall have the opportunity to exercise a right of reply or to seek other comparable legal or administrative remedies relating to programmes transmitted or retransmitted by entities or by technical means within its jurisdiction, within the meaning of Article 3. In particular, it shall ensure that timing and other arrangements for the exercise of the right of reply are such that this right can be effectively exercised. The effective exercise of this right or other comparable legal or administrative remedies shall be ensured both as regards the timing and the modalities.
2. For this purpose, the name of the broadcaster responsible for the programme service shall be identified therein at regular intervals by appropriate means.
Article 9
Access of the public to major events
Each Party shall examine the legal measures to avoid the right of the public to information being undermined due to the exercise by a broadcaster of exclusive rights for the transmission or retransmission, within the meaning of Article 3, of an event of high public interest and which has the effect of depriving a large part of the public in one or more other Parties of the opportunity to follow that event on television.
Article 10
Cultural objectives
1. Each transmitting Party shall ensure, where practicable and by appropriate means, that broadcasters reserve for European works a majority proportion of their transmission time, excluding the time appointed to news, sports events, games, advertising and teletext services. This proportion, having regard to the broadcaster’s informational, educational, cultural and entertainment responsibilities to its viewing public, should be achieved progressively, on the basis of suitable criteria.
2. In case of disagreement between a receiving Party and a transmitting Party on the application of the preceding paragraph, recourse may be had, at the request of one of the Parties, to the Standing Committee with a view to its formulating an advisory opinion on the subject. Such a disagreement shall not be submitted to the arbitration procedure provided for in Article 26.
3. The Parties undertake to look together for the most appropriate instruments and procedures to support, without discrimination between broadcasters, the activity and development of European production, particularly in countries with a low audiovisual production capacity or restricted language area.
4. The Parties, in the spirit of co-operation and mutual assistance which underlies this Convention, shall endeavour to avoid that programme services transmitted or retransmitted by entities or by technical means within their jurisdiction, within the meaning of Article 3, endanger the pluralism of the press and the development of the cinema industries. No cinematographic work shall accordingly be transmitted in such services, unless otherwise agreed between its rights holders and the broadcaster, until two years have elapsed since the work was first shown in cinemas; in the case of cinematographic works co-produced by the broadcaster, this period shall be one year.
Chapter III
ADVERTISING
Article 11
General standards
1. All advertisements shall be fair and honest.
2. Advertisements shall not be misleading and shall not prejudice the interests of consumers.
3. Advertisements addressed to or using children shall avoid anything likely to harm their interests and shall have regard to their special susceptibilities.
4. The advertiser shall not exercise any editorial influence over the content of programmes.
Article 12
Duration
1. The amount of advertising shall not exceed 15% of the daily transmission time. However, this percentage may be increased to 20% to include forms of advertisements such as direct offers to the public for the sale, purchase or rental of products or for the provision of services, provided the amount of spot advertising does not exceed 15%.
2. The amount of spot advertising within a given one-hour period shall not exceed 20%.
3. Forms of advertisements such as direct offers to the public for the sale, purchase or rental of products or for the provision of services shall not exceed one hour per day.
Article 13
Form and presentation
1. Advertisements shall be clearly distinguishable as such and recognisably separate from the other items of the programme service by optical or acoustic means. In principle, they shall be transmitted in blocks.
2. Subliminal advertisements shall not be allowed.
3. Surreptitious advertisements shall not be allowed, in particular the presentation of products or services in programmes when it serves advertising purposes.
4. Advertisements shall not feature, visually or orally, persons regularly presenting news and current affairs programmes.
Article 14
Insertion of advertisements
1. Advertisements shall be inserted between programmes. Provided the conditions contained in paragraphs 2 to 5 of this Article are fulfilled, advertisements may also be inserted during programmes in such a way that the integrity and value of the programme and the rights of the rights holders are not prejudiced.
2. In programmes consisting of autonomous parts, or in sports programmes and similarly structured events and performances comprising intervals, advertisements shall only be inserted between the parts or in the intervals.
3. The transmission of audiovisual works such as feature films and films made for television (excluding series, serials, light entertainment programmes and documentaries), provided their duration is more than forty-five minutes, may be interrupted once for each complete period of forty-five minutes. A further interruption is allowed if their duration is at least twenty minutes longer than two or more complete periods of forty-five minutes.
4. Where programmes, other than those covered by paragraph 2, are interrupted by advertisements, a period of at least twenty minutes should elapse between each successive advertising break within the programme.
5. Advertisements shall not be inserted in any broadcast of a religious service. News and current affairs programmes, documentaries, religious programmes, and children’s programmes, when they are less than thirty minutes of duration, shall not be interrupted by advertisements. If they last for thirty minutes or longer, the provisions of the previous paragraphs shall apply.