The administration of Cotidianul TV wants to launch the new television station on the day of the presidential elections

Cristian Cobuz claims that he cannot launch the television yet because the decision of the Broadcasting Council (BC), issued on October 1, has not yet been published in the Official Gazette and because of this, he cannot obtain the right to broadcast in distributor networks. “We have not received the license yet. (...) From the moment it is published in the Official Gazette, I will receive the printed license with which I’ll go to ANRCETI¹ to obtain the technical authorization for operation and, in parallel, having the license, I can start proceedings with the cable operators,” Cobuz said.

He explained to us that he wants to launch the TV station on election day out of the reasoning to get more audience. “It’s not because I want to influence the elections. During elections, our potential public needs information, so they take the remote control and try to see what others say. Then, we have the chance to be seen by more people, to win an audience that otherwise, at another time, would cost us a lot of promotion money. Always, during election periods, citizens’ interest for news and analysis articles increases. It’s scientific, it’s not a personal impression,” Cristian Cobuz told Media Azi.

The director of the television also said that, on October 21, a program made by the journalist Cătălin Ungureanu will appear online, which will be later broadcast by the station, too.
According to the editorial project, the new television station will broadcast in Romanian and will have newscasts, talk shows, documentaries, cognitive and entertainment programs. Also, according to the document, local audiovisual programs made exclusively by the media service provider will constitute 52%, and programs made by media service providers that are not under the jurisdiction of Moldova will make 35%. Among the borrowed programs are the Romanian projects Zig Zag, Romania at the Speaker, Storybook People, My Romania; the culture program Beyond the Arena; and the newscasts of Bucharest TV.

The administrator had several failed attempts to obtain the broadcasting license from the BC, which rejected the media project several times, citing inconsistencies in the documents submitted. Cristian Cobuz also went to court to challenge one of the BC’s decisions that rejected the TV project. Currently, the CTV administrator intends to withdraw the lawsuit, since the Council has granted them the license.

The broadcasting license for CTV is held by the public association People For Free Media, registered in May 2019 and led by Cristian Cobuz. The station appears with the financial support of the United States Embassy in Moldova. CTV television is created based on the media project Cotidianul.md, owned by the company Expresiv Media, whose founders are Cristian Cobuz (50%) and the owner of the Internet operator StarNet, Alexandr Machedon (50%).

[1] National Agency for Regulation in Electronic Communications and Information Technology