Page 110 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

BEYOND BALANCED PLURALISM 99

Thus private broadcasting legislation passed in all Länder has been
essentially constrained by the Federal Constitutional Court since it
rejected unfettered deregulation for both the public and private
broadcasting systems. Moreover, because of a traditionally strong
reliance on constitutional norms, and in order to reduce the legal
insecurity which characterized the private broadcasting debate in the
Federal Republic, the Land legislators repeated, almost word by word,
the Court’s basic formulations on pluralism and tended to take over
those rules from the broadcasting acts of Lower Saxony and Baden-
Württemberg, that were specifically sanctioned by the Court. However,
the different geographic, economic and political situations within
individual Länder gave rise to broadcasting legislation which meets the
criteria of the Federal Constitutional Court in a number of different
ways.

THE 1987 INTER-LAND TREATY

One of the main outcomes of the 1986 judgement of the Constitutional
Court was the signing in 1987 of a new Inter-Land Treaty. It is now a
major plank in the regulatory framework for broadcasting in the FRG.
Its underlying objective is to create a constitution for the ‘co-habitation’
of public-service and commercially funded private broadcasting.
Between 1984 and 1987, all eleven Länder had introduced legislation
for private commercial broadcasting which differed widely in their
licensing conditions, advertising rules, and their requirements for youth
protection and programme diversity. The private broadcasters, both
German and foreign, therefore lobbied strongly for a common
framework of national regulations. Thus the Länder had to agree, not
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only how to allocate the new cable and satellite distribution channels,
but also how to harmonize the conditions under which public and
private broadcasters could operate. 20
Article 8 of the Inter-Land Treaty embodies the essence of the
German pluralism requirements when licensing private broadcasters.

The content of private broadcasts has to express essentially the
pluralism of opinions. General interest channels have to grant
means of expression to the significant political, ideological
(weltanschaulich) and societal forces and groups; minority views
have to be taken into consideration. Thematic or special interests
channels may be offered in addition.