The BCC penalized 15 TV channels for failure to comply with rules on advertising

15 televisions out of the 18 monitored by the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) have been penalized for failure to comply with the rules on advertising: 13 channels received public warnings, and two – minimum fines. According to a press release issued by the BCC, only Publika TV and Noroc TV placed advertising according to the legislation on broadcasting.

Following the examination of the monitoring report, the BCC issued public warnings to Moldova 1, Canal 3, Pro TV Chişinău, 2 Plus, CTC Mega, Jurnal TV, Bravo, Muz TV, TVC 21, Ru-TV Moldova, ALT TV and Euro TV. The most violations in the placement of advertising were committed by ALT TV and Euro TV, which will be subjected to a repeated monitoring. The representatives of the two channels motivated failure to comply with the rules by technical problems related to the change of offices. Televisions Prime TV and TV 7 were penalized with minimum fines.

The violations committed by the monitored broadcasters included the following: failure to separate advertisements from other parts of broadcasting by optical and acoustic signals; exceeding the duration of advertising per one hour of airtime as it is prescribed by the Broadcasting Code; inclusion of camouflaged advertising, teleshopping and product placement into broadcast programs; sponsoring of newscasts; failure to include messages promoting a healthy lifestyle at the end of advertisements for foodstuff; failure to cover the advertising of the rebroadcast foreign channels; etc.

An unsolved problem that brought about disputes at the BCC meeting is product placement in the programs of foreign channels rebroadcast in Moldova. Broadcasters’ representatives claim that they have no technical possibilities to “erase” the names of products when rebroadcasting programs. As a solution, the BCC President Marian Pocaznoi suggested creating and putting on the air more domestic broadcasting products.