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More Substantial Fines for Some TV Channels Monitored by the BC in the Second Round of the Election Campaign

23 November 2020
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The Broadcasting Council (BC) sanctioned one TV channel 15 000 lei and six other TV channels 10 000 lei each for the breaches identified during the second round of the presidential election campaign. The sanctions were applied upon examining the third monitoring report for 15 media service providers from November 4 to November15.

According to the BC Monitoring Department, several TV channels covered the candidates who competed in the second round in an unbalanced manner, and some channels also committed incitement to hatred while informing the public of the participation of a group of people in a meeting supporting independent candidate Igor Dodon supported by the Party of Socialists. “I would refer here to a number of TV channels such as Primul în Moldova, NTV Moldova, BTV, TVR Moldova, Pro TV Chișinău, Jurnal TV, and TV8, which I would categorize as the channels which have failed to provide presenting opposition opinions. Moreover, I would also accuse these TV channels of reflecting electoral issues in an unbalanced way, judging by time and connotation, though the degrees of probability and intensity differed. Such a discrepancy actually occurred, destabilizing the balance of objectivity insistently, if not gravely. Some issues, unfortunately – which, in my opinion, is particularly serious – really incited hatred and disrupted the balance in forming a free opinion”, the BC President Dragos Vicol declared at the meeting on 23 November.

He also remarked that such channels as TVC, RTR Moldova, Canal 2, Canal 3, Prime, Publika TV, Moldova 1, and Radio Moldova “generally ensured the balance while presenting the candidates.”

Therefore, upon examining the monitoring report, the BC members decided to sanction such channels as Primul în Moldova, TVR Moldova, TV8, NTV Moldova, Jurnal TV, and Pro TV Chișinău 10 000 lei each.

BTV was sanctioned 15 000 lei repeatedly after being previously fined 10 000 lei for similar breaches.

TV8, Jurnal TV, and TVR Moldova representatives rejected the BC’s allegations.