WRITTEN QUESTION P-4023/00

by Maurizio Turco (TDI) to the Commission

(12 December 2000)

Subject: Funding of radio and television broadcasts in Italian

Do the European institutions fund Italian-language radio and televisions broadcasts?

Under what heading, according to what criteria and in accordance with what procedures is the funding allocated?

What broadcasts are funded and what is the amount of funding for each individual broadcast?

If checks are carried out, what parameters are used and who carries out the checks?

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(26 January 2001)

The Commission would like to draw the Honourable Member's attention to the Community's MEDIA programme, its main programme in the audiovisual field.

The MEDIA programme does not cover the field of radio broadcasting. Furthermore, its support to television broadcasting is strictly targeted at independent production companies, not broadcasters.

The MEDIA programme supports independent European production companies producing European television programmes (fiction, animation, documentaries) involving the participation of at least two broadcasting companies from at least two of the participant countries in the MEDIA programme. The television programme must have a minimum duration of 25 minutes and must not have been broadcast before the date of the deadline of the relevant call for proposals. Exploitation rights licensed to the broadcasters participating in the production have to revert to the producer after a maximum license period of seven years.

During the MEDIA II programme six Italian television projects have been supported for a total Community contribution of 990 000.

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In addition to the MEDIA programme the Budgetary Authority included, ever since 1998, an item (B3-2016) to support initiatives on innovative and multilingual radio and television channels and for pilot projects in the areas of electronic distribution of content and electronic production networks, in the form of financial contributions which cannot exceed 50 % of the total expenditure of the programme. The qualitative content-based criteria foresee that projects must either be targeted at the operational phase of the implementation of European digital radio services (Action 1) or of European multilingual television channels/groups of television channels (Action 2), or concern pilot projects in the area of electronic content distribution (Action 3) or electronic production networks (Action 4). Analysis of the dossiers by the Commission and a panel of independent experts focuses in particular on the methodology of the project submitted and on the following characteristics of the envisaged initiative to which the project refers:

European dimension; number of Member States actively involved (at least four); multilingual nature (at least three languages must be involved); quality and relevance of European and multicultural content; nature and extent of European audience; strength and transnational nature of initiative's partners; innovative nature of the initiative; utilisation of current technological developments for transmission and dissemination of programmes.

Information requested by means of the application form is used to assess not only the likelihood of the realisation of the project submitted but also to test the capacity of the applicant to implement effectively such initiatives, in particular with regard to their potential for financial and technical viability.

The projects financed in 1998 and 1999 are as follows:

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