Appendix 6 - International Music Council

The open channel is under the financial responsibility of the German-speaking Community
while the management is the responsibility of a private-sector non-profit association.
Program and program regulations. The BRF is responsible for information, education and
entertainment of the audience. Additionally, it has the task to make the German-speaking
Community known. The are standards of objectivity. The BRF's management board
functions as a control structure having supervisory responsibility for the BRF. It strives for
freedom of opinion for the various ideological and philosophical tendencies. According to
the Media Decree, all television providers must ensure the visibility of the Germanspeaking
Community in their programmes.
Private radio broadcasters are obliged to present balanced information reflecting a
multitude of perspectives in their programm. Furthermore, they have to put emphasis on
culture and artists from the German-speaking Community and the neighbouring regions.
Private individual and legal entities are able under their own responsibility to transmit
television programming under certain time limitations. For this purpose, the German
speaking Community has set up a public broadcasting channel under private sponsorship,
Belgium offering free, equal access and free, equal use. Access is denied, inter alia, to
political parties; sponsored contributions are not permitted. (ericarts Belgium 22f.)
Conclusions: Diversity and Broadcasting in Belgium
Broadcasting in Belgium is organized mainly according to the political entities of the
communities and according to the principle of subsidiarity. As a result the system is open to
diversity and even actively supports diversity of many kinds (propriety, contents,
language).
There is sparse direct information on the concrete situation of musical diversity in Belgium,
but the structures outlined above indicate the cultural diversity in general is highly
esteemed by the political organization of broadcasting in Belgium.
That the organization of Belgium broadcasting system according to the devision in three
main communities leads to an adequate representation of these groups in the broadcasting
structures has been shown. A question still remaining open is, if the emphasis put on this
distinction disfavours other distinctions such as the representation of other minorities. From
the available information this does not seem to be the case. Although migrant workers, for
example, do not have the status of one or more separate community, they are represented in
the broadcasting program.
EXAMPLE 3: BROADCASTING STRUCTURES IN GERMANY
Political Competencies and Financing
Broadcasting in Germany is mainly regulated by the federal states (Länder). The statutory
basis for the public and the private sector is the Interstate Broadcasting Agreement
concluded among the Länder. On the basis of this agreement and of their competencies for
broadcasting, the Länder have enacted detailed provisions in their respective Land
Broadcasting Acts. The legal framework for the new information and communications
technologies is defined by the Telecommunications Act (August 1st, 1996), the Federal
Information and Communication Services Act (August 1st, 1997), and the essentially
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