ACC issues official warnings to 11 TV and radio stations

On Tuesday, March 6, the Audiovisual Coordinating Council (CCA) issued official warnings to 11 radio stations and TV channels in Moldova, claiming violations of the Broadcasting Code’s provisions. ACC monitored in February a number of TV and radio stations, tracing a series of violations. The most important and frequent are the violations related to the broadcasting schedule, conditions of placing advertisement, non-observance of provisions according to which as from January 1 the volume of the own and local production of informative and analytical nature must be 70% at least etc. The stations that received official warnings were “Radio Moldova”, “Maestro FM”, “Unda Nistreana”, “Autoradio”, “Radio Noroc”, “Moldova 1”, “TV7”, “NIT”, “Albasat TV”, “TV Euronova” and “Pervyi Kanal Moldova”. If broadcasters repeatedly violate the same violations, ACC, according to the legislation, is empowered to apply fines from 100 to 300 minimum salaries. At the same sitting, ACC approved adjustments for the broadcasting schedules of the channels “TV 6 Balti” and “Muzica TV”, which proposed their own programmes in the official language, in a larger volume than in the previous schedule. In the case of “TV 6 Balti”, a channel owned by the same company as “FM 103.5” radio station, ACC chairman Corneliu Mihalache suggested postponing the approval of its new schedule, because the station was recently monitored, and it would make sense to examine the results of the monitoring first. On the other hand, ACC member Vlad Turcanu stated that the regulation authority itself requested that radiobroadcasters aligned with the required percentage of programmes in the official language, and now instead of greeting them, ACC looks for different methods to postpone the approval of the corresponding schedule. With the majority of votes, the Council has approved the broadcasting schedule of the respective station.