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FREE LAW JOURNAL - VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1 (18 JULY 2005)
2. ATTEMPTS FOR REGULATION AT EUROPEAN LEVEL
Connected with the introduction of new technologies, growing internationalisation of media activities
carried the concentration problem to international level. But international or so called supranational law
seems to be far from being able to constitute a corresponding regulatory framework.
Neither of the two basic European legal sources regarding broadcasting, namely the Television Without
Frontiers Directive adopted by the European Community in 1989 and the European Convention on
Transfortier Television put into effect by the members of Council of Europe in 1993, include provisions
dealing with the problems caused by ownership concentration. In fact, these were from the outset coherent
texts prepared with a common view of maintaining a European single media market 28 . The Convention
has been amended in 2002 and realigned with the Directive which was revised in 1997 29 .
The first institutional calls for Europe-wide regulation of media ownership came from the European
Parliament in 1984. In several resolutions released in following years European Parliament stressed the
danger of concentration and declared the necessity of legislative intervention in favour of pluralism in
media structure. Consequently the European Commission attempted to prepare a special directive dealing
with the issue. But the long consultation period in 1990’s witnessed so wide controversies and disputes
that it could not result in adoptation of any directive 30 .
The failure to have a regulatory instrument at European level leads to leaving the media ownership and
concentration matters to the national legislators 31 .
3. DEVELOPMENTS IN TURKISH LAW
3.1. Evolution in General
In Turkey, broadcasting services were under direct state control at the beginning. An important step for
the system was the establishment of Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) in 1964, in
accordance with the Constitution of 1961 which stipulated that broadcasting activities should be carried
out by an independent and autonomous body. TRT was kept as a constitutional public institution having
the monopoly of broadcasting for a long time. In neither 1961 nor the new 1982 Constitution that replaced
the old one there was a permission for free private broadcasting.
The lack of legality, however, could not prevent the activities of private companies in both radio and
television sectors. The first so called ‘pirate’ television channel started broadcasting in 1990 and the
others followed it. The illegal and quick emergence of the stations forced the Parliament to make an
28 Levy, op.cit., pp. 41-47; Cavallin, supra note 3; Alison Harcourt, “The European Commission and Regulation of Media
Industry”, http://www.medialaw.ru/laws/other_laws/european/e-eh.htm
29 Stefaan Verhulst, David Goldberg, “The European Institutions”, Goldberg, Prosser, Verhulst (eds), op.cit., pp. 157-158;
Revised text of European Convention on Transfortier Television and its Explanatory Report is available at
http://www.coe.int/T/E/Human_Rights/media/2_Transfortier_Television
30 Levy, op.cit., pp. 50-59; Verhulst, Goldberg, op.cit., p. 167; Media Diversity in Europe, supra note 2, p. 10; Harcourt, Ibid.
31 Media Diversity in Europe, Ibid. For a recent call for a common action against concentration see Transnational Media
Concentration in Europe, Report prepared by AP-MD (Advisory Panel on Media Diversity) for CDMM (Council of Europe
Steering Committee on Mass Media), Strasbourg, 2004.
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DR. SAIM UYE - PLURALITY OF OPINION VERSUS CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP : RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TURKISH MEDIA LAW