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The authors of the Cotidianul TV project announce they will sue the BC after their application for license was rejected three times

12 August 2020
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The administration of People For Free Media intends to challenge in court the Broadcasting Council (BC) decisions to reject broadcasting license applications for the Cotidianul TV (CTV) television station. At the last meeting on this subject, which was the third, the BC members again said they had found discrepancies between the structure of the audiovisual media service and the TV listings.

At the meeting on August 11, the administrator of People For Free Media, Cristian Cobuz, said he had changed the editorial project from a general one to an informative-analytical one at the suggestion of the BC, but the authority claims that some of the information was the same as in the previous application.

Lidia Viziru said that the organization’s application did not have a check mark against any option of the type of television the organization is applying for and that there is no concordance between the presented structure and the editorial project. “In terms of the structure of the audiovisual media service, they applied for a television station with general audiovisual media services, but the editorial project… I quote: ‘Cotidianul TV will be an informative-analytical television station, politically independent…,’” argued Viziru. She also had objections to the percentage of own and borrowed audiovisual programs.

The BC Chairman Dragos Vicol said he trusts Lidia Viziru’s analysis and proposed the project to be rejected. His proposal was accepted by the majority of Council members.

Cristian Cobuz claims that, most likely, the application contained an error regarding the structure of media service, and he says that he has changed the old project, which was general, into an informative-analytical one. “It was a public execution. (…) I will keep litigating. I will go to court, I have no other solution,” Cristian Cobuz commented for Media Azi.

Previously, Cristian Cobuz said that the media outlet would work through projects. He also manages the cotidianul.md portal.

Until mid-2019, cotidianul.md was managed by Expresiv Media, a company founded by Cristian Cobuz and Alexandru Machedon, the owner of the StarNet company and former chief of staff of the PPDA party leader Andrei Nastase at the local elections in Chisinau.