Maximum Fine For Seven Televisions That Violated Legislation In The Election Campaign

The Broadcasting Coordinating Council at its meeting on October 28 applied the maximum fine of MDL 5,400 to the seven televisions that had violated the provisions of Article 7 paragraphs (2), (3) and (4) letter c) of the Broadcasting Code. The violations were identified during the monitoring conducted by the broadcasting regulator in the period of October 10-16, 2016, the results of which were included in the second report on monitoring the media in the election campaign, presented at the same meeting.

The sanction has been applied to the following channels: Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika TV, Jurnal TV, Accent TV and NTV Moldova. The report showed that these broadcasters continued favoring certain candidates in elections.

Channels Realitatea TV, RTR Moldova, N4 and Pro TV have been sanctioned with public warnings. They committed small breaches of law, caused, according to BCC members, mostly by some political events involving candidates.

In the opinion of BCC member Nicolae Damaschin, the results of monitoring conducted by the BCC do not differ from those in the reports of civil society and international institutions. Damaschin regretted that the BCC cannot apply sanctions depending on the gravity of violations and proposed “applying maximum sanctions.”

BCC member Olga Gututui mentioned that not all televisions organize election debates despite having made this commitment before the start of the election campaign, and she demanded televisions with national coverage to present reports in this regard. “I heard that some channels air election debates at 6 o’clock in the morning, on Saturday and Sunday. Who watches them?” Ms. Gututui wondered.

It should be mentioned that the televisions that have now received maximum fines, at the meeting on October 16, when the BCC launched its first monitoring report, for similar violations were sanctioned with public warnings, but did not take them into account.

The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and the Association of Independent Press (AIP) in a recent joint declaration have criticized the fact that the BCC monitors exclusively the election campaign and presents reports once in ten days, which, according to the leaders of the two organizations, shows that the BCC “removes itself from the regulation of broadcasting in Moldova.” The IJC and the AIP asked the broadcasting regulator to monitor broadcasters in the election campaign “at least weekly and to apply sanctions.”