EU: Broadcast quotas widely respected

In its third annual report on the implementation of the Television Without Frontiers Directive the European Commission has reported that most MS TV broadcasting companies are respecting the quota system for European productions, as stipulated in Article 4 of the Directive, which requires a majority of broadcast output to be European-origin production. In 1996, 214 broadcasting stations were monitored in 1996, against 148 in 1994; out of the 1996 total, 72 did not broadcast a proportion of 51 per cent of European-originated productions, while 43 per cent failed to achieve the required 10 per cent quota of independent productions.