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Sergiu Cornetchi, Senior Consultant from the Parliamentary Committee for Culture, Education, Research, Youth, Sport and Mass-Media, explained to Media-azi that the version voted by the MPs was not made public because it was being edited. ‘It is the holiday season now and the editing is a painstaking job’, said Cornetchi, adding that ‘initially, the draft had 90 articles, while now – 94 articles.’
The Audiovisual Media Services Code was developed by national and international experts, as well as representatives of the civil society in the Working Group on improvement of mass-media legislation.
According to Sergiu Cornetchi, the law will enter into force on 1 January 2019, after it is published in the Official Gazette.
Amendments That the New Code Might Contain
Cornetchi added that the latest version of the law reflects the Council of Europe's views on the definition of the prime time. Thus, ‘from Monday to Friday and 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. on Sundays and Saturdays, as well as on non-working holidays specified in the Labour Code of the Republic of Moldova’ was taken out of the definition of ‘prime time’. According to the amendments, the time between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. for television services, and between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. for radio services shall be regarded as prime time.
Also, according to the most recent amendments to the Code, published on the website of the Parliament, a provision was added from the current law, regarding the permission to retransmit informative, informative-analytical and military shows produced only in the countries that ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, in the European Union member states, the USA and Canada.
The article regarding the legal form of ownership, provides – as amended – that a beneficiary ‘may not own four licenses in total, but only two and without thematic distinction.’ The initial version said that ‘an individual may be the beneficial owner of maximum two generalist television services and/or news services, as well as of maximum two thematic television services’.
Also, the amendments that touched on the penalties say that the withdrawal of one’s broadcast license for having violated the ‘anti-propaganda law’ and a new article that prohibits audiovisual programs ‘inclined to spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance or discrimination on grounds of sex, race or ethnicity, nationality, religion or faith, disability or sexual orientation’ shall apply after the penalties provided for have been gradually imposed. The penalties for the violation of the said provisions consist of fines of MDL 40,000 up to MDL 70,000. The penalties for the repeated violation of the said provisions consist of fines of MDL 70,000 up to MDL 100,000.
