The public broadcaster SWR wants to score points with younger people with a special news app. Press publishers see this as illicit competition. A court has now decided on her lawsuit again.
Südwestrundfunk (SWR) is allowed to continue operating its news app “Newszone” after a ruling by the Stuttgart Regional Court. The court rejected a lawsuit by press publishers against the offer for younger people.
The court announced that the verdict is not yet final. The group of publishers immediately announced through their industry association that they would appeal. So the dispute continues and goes to the next instance. The Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) noted the verdict with surprise, it said in a statement.
SWR “Newszone” was controversial from the start
The legal dispute between the private publishers and the public SWR over the app is almost as old as the offer itself. The “Newszone” has been around since spring 2022 (DIGITAL FERNSEHEN reported).
The group of 16 publishers, mainly from the southwest as well as from the regional association of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, had sued because they considered a version of the app at the time to be too text-heavy. The houses criticize that this creates unauthorized competition for their offers.
Publishers see the app as unfair competition
Essentially, the question is whether content from public broadcasters could be too similar to that of private press publishers. The federal states have prohibited this from broadcasters that are financed through broadcasting fees by means of a state treaty. Experts use the term in a press-like way.
The court did not follow the plaintiff publishers on the question of press similarity. This cannot be assumed. In contrast, the BDZV called the situation “unchanged”. It therefore appears necessary to appeal.
The federal states are currently working on reforming the media treaty. Publishers hope that this will provide more support for their position in press similarity.
The ARD broadcaster SWR put the app on hold for a while in autumn 2022 as a result of the legal dispute. At the end of March, SWR activated it again. The publishers then went to court again.
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Image source:
- df-swr-newszone-logo: SWR
Source: www.digitalfernsehen.de
