overseeing and intervening against the acquisition of media ownership (either prohibiting the acquisition or merger, or allowing an acquisition on such conditions as the Authority sets, including ordering the divestment of other media ownership interests.
History
The agency was established 1 January 2005 by merging three government agencies:
Norwegian Board of Film Classification, which was in charge of rating movies.
Norwegian Media Ownership Authority, which oversaw media ownership.
Mass Media Authority, which had tasks related to broadcasting and newspapers.
The new authority was located in Fredrikstad from 20 March 2006, where the Mass Media Authority already was located, but in a new building. In 2003, the agency was moved from Oslo to Fredrikstad from 20 March 2006, where the Mass Media Authority had been located. This was a program along with six other directorates and inspectorates which were move out of Oslo, which had been initialized by Victor Norman, Minister of Government Administration and Reform of the Conservative Party. It cost 729 million Norwegian krone to move the seven agencies. An official report from 2009 concluded that the agencies had lost 75 to 90% of their employees, mostly those with long seniority, and that for a while critical functions for society were dysfunctional. No costs reductions had been made, there was no significant impact on the target area, and there was little impact on the communication between the agencies and the ministries. In a 2010 report, Professor Jarle Trondal concluded that none of the agencies had become more independent after the move, despite this being one of the main arguments from the minister. Norman successor, Heidi Grande Røys of the Socialist Left Party, stated that the moving had had an important symbolic effect on the target areas, and that she did not see the lack of advantages as a reason to not move similar agencies later.
From 2004, classification of films to be viewed to persons aged 18 or more were no longer required. If a distributor choose to register a film without classification, the film distributor will be criminally responsible if the film has content prohibited by Norwegian law. Contents that are prohibited in films and other entertainment media in Norway are:
