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Plahotniuc Looses One More Position: PRIME TV Renounces the National Frequency

01 November 2019
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PRIME TV channel, which belongs to the former leader of the Democratic Party, Vladimir Plahotniuc, renounces the national frequency in analog format. Lia Gutu, Head of the General Directorate for Licensing, Authorization, and Monitoring of the Broadcasting Council (BC), confirmed for Media-azi.md that the representatives of the broadcaster recently contacted the regulator with such a request.

Gutu said that the BC was to examine this issue during its public meeting on 4 November. ‘Some time ago Canal 2 renounced the national frequency and now PRIME does the same. On 4 November we are to amend Annex No 1 to BC Decision No 37/119 of 20 August 2019 on the classification of the media service providers in the jurisdiction of the Republic of Moldova and they will no longer be national’, stated Lia Gutu.

Note that on 31 October, the Minister of Economy, Vadim Branzan, stated during the TV show ‘Politica’ on TV 8 with Natalia Morari, that PRIME announced ‘Radiocomunicatii’ SOE about the fact that it renounced the national frequency.  When asked by the moderator about the reason of this decision, the Minister stated that Plahotniuc’s holding company (General Media Group) had no longer enough money to cover its expenses. He mentioned that the TV channels affiliated with Plahotniuc (including Canal 2, which belongs to its political adviser, Oleg Cristal) paid about MDL 1,200,000 per month for ‘Radiocomunicatii’ SOE services.

Source: ТВ 8

Branzan also mentioned that Moldtelecom would also change the grid of TV channels in the program services, according to a legal procedure, and that Plahotniuc’s broadcasters would no longer appear on the top of the grid as they did before. Note that Moldova 1 public channel is currently at the top of Moldtelecom grid.


Source: Moldtelecom

Also, until this day – 1 November, PRIME TV was the only TV channel that broadcast the content of ‘Pervii Kanal’ from Moscow. Currently, this right is also owned by Accent TV, affiliated to PSRM, which changed its name into ‘Primul in Moldova’. In fact, Stanislav Vijga, Accent TV Head, said during a BC meeting that, beginning with 1 November, PRIME TV would no longer broadcast the content of ‘Pervii Kanal’.

For the time being, however, both TV channels continue to broadcast, at the same time, the content of the Russian channel, and the broadcast grids of PRIME and ACCENT TV contain several names of programs that are similar to those from ‘Pervii Kanal’.


Broadcast networks of PRIME and Accent TV (Primul în Moldova). Source: Point.md

 

Vijga mentioned that the content of ‘Pervii Kanal’ could be watched on almost all cable networks and would be broadcast in digital format and in multiplex A with national coverage.

Lia Gutu also stated for Media-azi.md that Accent TV (Primul in Moldova) didn’t yet submit a request to obtain national frequency.

We contacted ‘Radiocomunicatii’ SOE to find out if PRIME submitted such a request, but only the responsible from the technical department picked up the phone and redirected us to the Economic Director, Larisa Castravet. We called various times but she didn’t pick the phone.
The representatives of PRIME TV also didn’t answer to our calls.

Previously, media and advertising experts stated for Media-azi.md that the appearance of Primul in Moldova would change the balance of forces in the media and would strengthen the socialist positions.

Note that 1 March 2020 is the deadline for the broadcast of analog terrestrial TV signal.
 
 
Source of photo: PRIME