Finland: Government proposes amendments to the Act on the Finnish Broadcasting Company

NordenBladet — The Government proposes that the Act on the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE, be amended so that the text-based online content published by YLE would be more closely linked to its audio or video content broadcasts. The Government submitted its legislative proposal to Parliament on 17 December 2020.The aim of the proposal is to specify the role of the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE, as a public service media house and to bring the regulation on the company into line with EU state aid rules. The proposed provisions would generally allow YLE to provide text content only for the purpose of supporting broadcasts or releases containing video or audio material.

The proposed provisions would clarify the current regulation in terms of the operating environment for commercial media. The purpose is also to ensure that YLE can continue providing text content as part of public service broadcasting.YLE would not be able to publish text content, if the content was not linked with a broadcast or release containing video or audio material. This would not, however, apply to:
– short text content published by YLE on the basis of cooperation with a national news agency, e.g. the Finnish News Agency, STT,
– news briefs relating to breaking news situations,- official bulletins broadcast under law,- news content in text form in Saami and Romani languages or addressed to other minority language groups in Finland,
– cultural and educational text content.

Next steps
A preliminary debate will be held on the proposal now submitted by the Government to Parliament. The timetable for the debate will be listed on Parliament website (upcoming plenary sessions).After the preliminary debate, the proposal will be taken to a Parliamentary Committee. After the Committee submits a report, the process will continue in a plenary session.

Source: Valtioneuvosto.fi