Moldtelecom Has Changed the Order of TV Channels in The List of Services Based on Some “Internal Analyses”

On Wednesday, February 10, Moldtelecom informed about changes in the grid of IPTV services. They were related to the repositioning of some TV channels and were allegedly made “for subscribers’ convenience”. On the other hand, journalists, experts and media consumers disagree with these changes and believe that people will thus be subjected to manipulation.

The first four positions in the grid were given to private channels Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV, all with national coverage and with a single owner – politician and businessman Vlad Plahotniuc. Public television Moldova 1 is on the fifth position.

The national operator argues that changes were made based on “the analysis of TV channels’ popularity, their themes, convenience for use and subscribers’ requests.” However, the “popularity” criterion does not seem convincing. For example, TV7 channel was changed to position 15, and in its stead, on position 9, they placed a channel that has only recently obtained a broadcasting license and cannot be considered popular – NTV Moldova.

TV journalist Natalia Morari from TV7 claims that the channel was placed on a lower position in the Moldtelecom cable network without announcing the channel’s management or its viewers. On a social network, the author and host of “Politica” and “Interpol” shows on TV7 wrote that “it happened when all the channels of the famous holding from Moldexpo got the first buttons.”

Petru Macovei, director of the Association of Independent Press, commented on the same social network, quoting the Moldtelecom press release: “‘Reconfiguration has been based on the analysis of popularity of TV channels.’ The question is: Was the popularity analysis made by General Media Grup or the Global Business Center?”

Other netizens have also harshly criticized the new Moldtelecom service grid. In their opinion, people in villages will continue being manipulated, especially those who have no access to the Internet and “are connected to the monopolist Moldtelecom.” “People in villages have nowhere to get to know that the first channels in the grid belong to Plahotniuc, and when you watch them, you may feel that there is STABILITY in the country and everything is perfect,” a netizen writes.

Media Azi asked the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) chairman Dinu Ciocan about how he explains the fact that the public channel, Moldova 1, has for quite a while been in the 5th position of the Moldtelecom grid, and he told us that according to the current Broadcasting Code, the BCC cannot influence the national operator’s decision on reconfiguring the order of TV channels in the grid. “A regulatory decision needs to be produced for Moldova 1 to appear in the first position and the lists of TV channels to be more balanced,” he added.

Irina Vicol, senior PR and events specialist of Moldtelecom company, whom we asked what “popularity analysis” was used as a basis for changes in the grid, did not want to speak about it on the telephone and asked that questions be mailed to her. “We also need time to prepare. We are at work. Analyses, studies are internal business,” she told us.