Swedish Broadcasting Commission

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Granskningsnämnden för radio och TV (GRN, in English Swedish Broadcasting Commission) is a Swedish government agency formed in 1994 that enforces the official rules of broadcasting for radio and TV. If the agency concludes that a show has broken the rules it issues a fine.

1 Jurisdiction
2 Cases
3 Notes
4 External link

[edit] Jurisdiction

The Commission primarily function is to observe that radio and TV channels broadcasting from Sweden follow the Swedish Radio and TV Law and that companies with broadcasting permissions (issued by the government or the Swedish Radio and TV Authority).

Many channels broadcasting primarily to Sweden do not actually broadcast from Sweden. This is mostly a result of the strict regulation of broadcasting advertising in Sweden (advert breaks were illegal until 2002). The largest channels targeting Sweden, but not broadcasting from Sweden are TV3 and Kanal 5. Both are broadcast from Middlesex in London, UK.

GRN therefore only supervises broadcasts from Sweden - this includes TV4, but GRN has also decided that TV4's other channels, TV4 Plus and TV400, would be broadcast accordning to the TV4 broadcasting permission. With the digital franchise renewal of 2006, the permissions were changed so the digital-only channels would be subject to the TV4 analogue permission anymore.

The GRN have repeatedly ruled that TV3 and Kanal 5 are not broadcasting from Sweden and therefore doesn't have to follow Swedish regulation and are subject to control from Ofcom. Other Swedish channels broadcasting from the UK are ZTV, TV6 and The Voice TV. TV4 AB have decided to broadcast new channels from Finland, starting with TV4 Fakta in 2005.

TV4 officials have several times criticized the GRN and the foreign channels. TV4 has said they want to abolish GRN and let Pressens opinionsnämnd do their job.

[edit] Cases

The GRN has several times decided that Ring P1, a call-in show in the public talk radio channel P1, has broken the Sveriges Radio broadcasting permission. In December 2004, the GRN ruled that Ring P1 had broken the permission since the host of the show said "that I am a Repbulican, have always been a Republican and will always be a Republican isn't something I can do anything about". The statement was considered biased, as SR (as well as SVT, TV4 and UR) are required to be unbiased by their permission.

In 2004, the GRN found that it was not clear that The Man Show (broadcasted on TV4 Plus) was satirical. ^[1] Since then TV4 AB has shown a disclaimer when broadcasting the show. When shown on the youth channel TV400, this was replaced with a satirical film containing photographs of the members of the GRN.

The Oprah Winfrey Show was fined several times for improper support (mostly concerning "Oprah's favorite things") and had to be moved from TV4 to TV3.