The BCC did not look into several notifications requesting the monitoring of Prime TV, Canal 2 and Publika TV

The Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC), which had a meeting on Thursday, May 17, overlooked several requests to monitor the channels that stated they would not reflect the current election campaign happening in Chisinau. Olga Guţuţui, member of the BCC, believes that ignoring or postponing the examination of these notifications until after the election is not an act of fairness by the broadcasting regulator.

On May 10, the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections and the Working Group for Monitoring the Mass Media Behaviour during Elections requested the BCC to start monitoring Prime TV, Canal 2 and Publika TV channels in order to analyse how they comply with the legal provisions on fair coverage and on ensuring the plurality of opinions. The request to the BCC makes reference to the results of the second monitoring report developed by the Center for Independent Journalism, which covered the period between 28 April – 4 May 2018. According to the monitoring, these channels have in fact favoured or disfavoured certain candidates, taking advantage of not being on the list of broadcasters monitored by the BCC.

The Coalition members asked the BCC to carry out the monitoring for the time period between 20 April 2018 and 20 May 2018. The BCC informed that ‘the notification will be examined in a public hearing,’ however this has not happened so far.
The experts of WatchDog.md Association, who monitored the presence of electoral contestants in TV news during 11-14 May, also found that Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV, create, by means of manipulative news, a positive image for the candidate Silvia Radu and a negative image of the candidate Andrei Nastase in the election campaign for Chisinau mayoralty. The expert of WatchDog community, Valeriu Pasa, drew the attention of BCC members to the fact that these channels are among the most watched ones and that the refusal of BCC to monitor them during the election campaign is a violation of the national legislation.

Olga Gututui, BCC member, also submitted a written request on 8 May, asking the BCC to monitor all TV channels, not only those who said they would reflect the election campaign. ‘I haven’t received any answer to this request and I don’t think it’s right for such requests to be examined after the election, because any monitoring is also intended to obstruct deviations from the legal provisions if they are noticed in due time’.
At its meeting on Thursday, 17 May, BCC examined its own monitoring report regarding ten television broadcasters: Moldova-1, TV8, Accent TV, ITV, NTV Moldova, TVC 21, Exclusiv TV, Jurnal TV, Ren Moldova and RTR Moldova for the time period 30 April - 9 May 2018. This list is missing PublikaTV, PrimeTV, Canal 2 and Canal 3, who stated that they would not reflect the election campaign.

As a result of the monitoring, BCC publicly warned the television broadcasters TV 8 and RTR Moldova and imposed fines of MDL 10,000 for NTV Moldova and Jurnal TV, MDL 7,500 for Ren Moldova and MDL 5,000 for Accent TV. According to the BCC report, only two television broadcasters – Moldova-1 and PRO TV Chisinau – had a fair behaviour during the election campaign.
The BCC member Olga Gututui refused to vote for imposing fines to the sanctioned stations, believing that penalising the respective channels is incorrect, in the context where other television broadcasters had a similar behaviour, but they were not monitored by the BCC because they officially announced that they would not reflect the election campaign.