Germany Lifts Red Light on Televised Porn

The decision by Germany's Association of Regulatory Authorities for Broadcasting, (DLM) will allow the Premier TV cable service to offer a full palette of pornographic films on a pay-for-view basis. The private station will use two providers of erotic and pornographic films to satisfy its viewers.

Blue Movie, which is part of the Vienna-based media organization Telemedienst GmbH, plans to offer subscribers the choice of three 90 minute films per day, with the selection changing on a daily basis. Erotic Media will also be baring all on Premiere come the start of 2004. The Swiss company has an arsenal of some 3,000 films and is already involved in the more soft-core Beate Uhse AG erotic programming, which is already screened on Premiere.

An original request from Erotic Media to allow viewers non-stop access to its films was rejected by the DLM. The regulatory body insists that the only way to keep graphic sexual scenes from reaching innocent eyes is to operate Premier's porno TV on a pay-for-view basis available only to subscribing adults in possession of a Smartcard. Users will use the cards, which will not be on sale to minors, to identify themselves each time they want to watch a film.

Protecting German youth?

Premier manager Georg Kofler heralded the decision as a great success for youth media protection in Germany, adding that pornographic programming on offer via satellite and over the Internet had no regard for Germany's youth protection laws.

Germany has stricter laws for youth protection than many European nations, forbbiding the TV broadcast of films with a minimum age rating of 16 years between the hours of 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.

But at late night, German viewers can tune into all kinds of titillating television, with the air waves full of late-night sex chat shows, endless strings of adverts for telephone sex, and soft-core porn galore.

Few Germans have problems with on-air nudity and many are equally unbashful about their interest in eroticism and pornography. Most DVD and video stores across the country have a massive selection of soft and hard porn lining its backroom shelves and the Beate Uhse erotic empire has become an integral part of Germany's main street shopping landscape.

Media Service

Germany's strict youth protection laws forbid television stations from broadcasting hard-core pornography, but the DLM got around this issue by categorizing the planned porno TV as a "media service" on the grounds that it would only be on offer to a self-contained group of users.

The DLM, however, was critical of the fact that 'Blue Movie' is based in Austria. "It must be avoided that the effective German youth protection laws are weakened from abroad," DLM Chairman Wolfgang Thaenert told the Reuters news agency.

But a spokeswoman for Telemediendienst GmbH was quick to point out that the company is a subsidiary of Premier and that although they are based in Vienna and the films are produced there, the broadcast studio is in Germany.