| 2005 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
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Cultural highlights | Predictions made this year |
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| January 1 |
Tax credits equal to 20 per cent of expenditure on salaries of technicians and production crews, equipment, film stock, post-production and certain other costs are allowed under a change to French tax laws. To qualify production must take place in France and is subject to a maximum of €1m for films or €1,150 per minute for other audio-visual works.
[0049] |
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| January 1 |
Norway introduces VAT (value added tax) of seven per cent on cinema tickets. |
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| January 1 |
Electronic Communications Act comes into force in Estonia. [0049] |
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| January 16 |
Romania begins digital terrestrial television (DTT) transmissions. |
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| January |
Video-sharing internet service YouTube is founded. |
> 2006 |
| January 17 |
Soft launch of digital terrestrial television (DTT) transmission in France. |
> March 31 |
| February 9 |
Film co-production agreement is signed by Germany and New Zealand. [0049] |
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| February 21 |
Satellite channel Exstasi TV is banned by the UK government under a Foreign Satellite Proscription Order because of 'violent pornography' in its content.
[0049] |
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| February |
Discovery HD high definition television programming is included in the SkyHD channel of the SkyLife satellite pay TV service in Korea, the first time it is seen outside the US. |
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| March 10 |
Hungarian government publishes proposals for the introduction of digital terrestrial television (DTT). Three multiplexes are due to be introduced in 2007. Analogue transmissions will end when transmissions reach 97 per cent of the population and when 98 per cent of viewers have digital receiving equipment, which must be not later than 31 December 2012. [0049] |
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| March 25 |
Icelandic television channel Augnsyn ceases transmissions after less than four months. [0066] |
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| March 31 |
France begins free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) transmissions. |
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| March |
A Broadcasting Council is established in Azerbaijan. |
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| April 27 |
Court of Appeal in Paris decides that it is illegal for video distributors to encode protected works with an anti-copying device without making the fact sufficiently clear in the packaging. The court's decision is based on the 'three-stage test' in EU Directive 2001/29: that making a private digital copy of a work is a special case, that the copy does not prevent the normal commercial exploitation of the work, and that it does not prejudice the copyright owner's rights. Therefore, applying means to prevent any making of a private copy infringes the consumer's rights.
[0049] |
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| April 28 |
New Act on Copyright and Related Rights is passed by the Albanian parliament.
[0049] |
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| April 28 |
In the US, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) is signed into law by President George W Bush. The first part, the Artists Rights and Theft Prevention Act (ART Act), makes 'camcorder piracy'—shooting a copy of a film screened in 'a motion picture facility'—a specific criminal offence punishable by three years in prison, and also prevents pre-release piracy by industry insiders. The second part, the Family Movie Act (FMA) protects from liability innovators of technology that modify audio-visual works—eg, by muting offensive dialogue or skipping scenes containing sex or violence. |
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| April |
Cablevision closes its Rainbow DBS subsidiary, the holding company for the Voom DTH satellite service. |
> October |
| April |
US Congress renews the National Film Preservation Act for four more years. |
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| May 1 |
In the Czech Republic, the new Electronic Communications Act comes into force, having been passed by parliament on 22 February. [0049] |
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| May 19 |
Germany's Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court) rules that for the purposes of exploitation rights contracts, DVD does not fall into the category of as-yet-unknown technologies, for which contracts may not be made under German law, but is analogous to videocassettes.
[0049] |
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| June 22 |
Colombia's Ministry of Culture introduces a revised film classification scheme. |
Film classification schemes |
| June 27 |
US Supreme Court confirms a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that cable modems provide an information service rather than telecommunications service. As such they are not subject to common carrier regulations. [0049] |
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| June 28 |
 Sony demonstrates what it claims is the first commercially available 4K digital cinema projector, model SRX-R100 [right]. Conforming to the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) specifications for 'high-end' digital cinema presentations, it accepts 2K or high-definition sources and processes them for display as 4K. The first unit is installed in the Nova Kino at Trondheim, Norway.
Picture source: Sony. |
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| July 14 |
In Romania, Government Regulation no 39 establishes a system for granting state aid to Romanian film production. From the beginning of August all advertisers or their agencies have to pay three per cent of their television advertising spend to the National Cinematographic Centre (CNC). Separately licensed cable channel operators must pay one per cent of monthly income in addition to the three per cent advertising levy; video sales and rental companies pay two per cent of revenue. Interest-free loans from the CNC may proviude up to 50 per cent of a film's budget(80 per cent in the case of 'expensive small-budget' films) and must be repaid within seven years. Up to 20 per cent of the budget may be spent in EU member states. Public broadcasters must include promotions for Romanian film productions. [0049] |
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| July 15 |
Slovenian parliament approves a new Act on Radiotelevision Slovenia.
[0049] |
> September 25 |
| July 25 |
Albania's National Council for Radio and Television announces that it will invite competing tenders for another (third) privately-owned national analogue television channel. The country's parliament rejected a bill to authorise digital broadcasting in May.
[0049] |
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| July 31 |
Italian government consolidates all existing broadcasting law in a new Code under a legislative decree. [0049] |
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| August 29 |
Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company is established in Azerbaijan under the law of 2004. |
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| August |
Albania begins digital terrestrial television (DTT) transmissions. |
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| August |
BBC Broadcast, the former Broadcasting and Presentation department of the BBC, is acquired by Creative Broadcast Services, owned by Macquarie Capital Alliance Group (65 per cent) and Macquarie Bank (35 per cent). |
> October 31 |
| September 1 |
C More HD becomes the first regular high-definition pay TV channel in Europe. It is available in Sweden as a bonus to the eight-channel standard-definition package from C More Entertainment, a subsidiary of SBS Broadcasting. |
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| September 1 |
Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming device is launched in Europe after three delays in the release date. In the first three days it sells 185,000 in the UK. |
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| September 13 |
Nintendo's latest version of the GameBoy handheld gaming device, GB Micro, goes on sale in Europe. UK sales in the first week amount to 148,000 units. |
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| September 15 |
UK Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport Tessa Jowell announces the phased timetable for completion of the conversion to digital television broadcasting and switch-off of analogue transmissions. |
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| September 25 |
Slovenia conducts a public referendum, forced by the parliamentary opposition on whether or not to implement the Act on Radiotelevision Slovenia.
[0049] |
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| October 12 |
Apple begins to make short-form videos—mainly music tracks—available for download through its iTunes Store. Individual videos cost $1.99 in the US and £1.89 in the UK. Over 1m downloads are sold by the end of the month. |
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| October 15 |
Files shared on the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing system amount to an estimated 54 petabytes (Pb)—which equals 54,000,000 Gb. |
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| October 17 |
UK's ITV network launches a three-month trial of ITV Local, an online service for individual towns and cities, beginning with Brighton and Hastings. |
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| October |
Cablevision sells the satellites it had used for its Voom DTH television service to Echostar, which takes an equity stake in the Voom channel operations. |
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| October |
Sony begins shipments of its SRX-R110 digital cinema projector, the first meeting the high definition 4K standard to be put on the market. Production of 100 units a month is to begin in December. |
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| October |
Czech Republic's Broadcasting Council fines two broadcasters, Nova and Prima, for transmitted the so-called 'reality' show Big Brother before the watershed of 22:00. The Council argues that values of respect and regard for the integrity of others are undermined by the programme and that showing such anti-social behaviour may legitimise it in the minds of young people.
[0049] |
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| October 31 |
BBC Broadcast is renamed Red Bee Media. |
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| November |
Quarter of the shares in Dutch television production company Endemol are floated on the Euronext stock exchange in Amsterdam by Telefónica. |
2007 May 14 |
| November 29 |
New Law on Broadcasting Activity comes into force in Macedonia, bringing the country's legislation in line with the European Union's Television Without Frontiers Directive.. |
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| December 3 |
Germany's Premiere direct-to-home satellite service supplies 1,000 set-top boxes (Pace DS810) for high-definition (HD) television trials and broadcasts a Bundesliga football match the next day in HD. |
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| December 10 |
Russia launches an English-language satellite news channel, Russia Today. |
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| December 10 |
President Kurban Bakiev issues a decree to establish a national public service broadcaster in Kyrgyzstan, to be called ELTR. The president gets to appoint the chief executive on the advice of a Supervisory Board, also appointed by the president to a five-year term on the recommendations of leading academic and other non-governmental institutions.[0049] |
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| December 22 |
A new Act on the Lithuanian National Radio and Television is approved by the country's parliament. The introduction of a licence fee, which had been considered, is dropped in favour of funding from a combination of advertising, a state budget allocation and earnings from commercial activities.
[0049] |
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| December 22 |
BBC closes its Slovak language service. |
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| December 29 |
In Poland the Broadcasting Act and Other Laws are revised, abolishing the Office of Telecommunications and Post Regulation and creating an Electronic Communications Office.
[0049] |
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| December 30 |
UK's Office of Fair Trading approves the merger of cable operators NTL and Telewest and the acquisition of Easynet Group by BSkyB Broadband Services. |
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| December |
Voluntary codes are agreed by Ireland's broadcasting and cinema industries for advertising of alcohol. A monitoring body will report annually to the Department of Health and Children. Alcohol advertising may not be included in television programmes aimed at young people nor at times when more than a third of the audience is aged under 18. In cinemas strong drink may not be advertised and advertising for other alcoholoc drinks may not exceed more than 40 per cent of advertising minutage and may be included only when at least 75 per cent of the audience is 18 or over. |
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| • |
Admissions to French films outside France reach 73.6m, exceeding admissions in the domestic market (64.8m) for the first time. |
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| • |
In the UK sales of DVDs amount to 211m units. An additional 130m are given away with newspapers. |
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