The European Commission ruled today that aid given by the governments of Italy and Portugal to their state television firms were in line with European Union rules.
But the Commission also asked the state-owned broadcasters to revamp their accounts to separate money for public service functions from commercial activities.
The Commisson also examined the Spanish government's aid to state broadcaster RTVE and asked Madrid to amend its guarantees it provides to the broadcaster.
The EU had been investigating Italy's RAI, and Portugal's RTP to see if national governments had been giving the broadcasters more money than they needed to provide public-service programming.
"The European Commission has informed Italy and Portugal that certain ad hoc measures adopted during the 1990s to support the Italian and Portuguese broadcasters are in line with state aid requirements," the EU executive said in a statement. Governments can define public service programming how they like, but must ensure support for broadcasters is proportional and limited to their public service role.
Most attention had focused on RAI, which carves up 95 per cent of the Italian television market with commercial broadcaster Mediaset, itself controlled by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Mediaset complained to the Commission about government tax breaks, soft loans and capital increases for RAI in 1999, and analysts had predicted a boost for the firm if there was any judgement against the public broadcaster.