Experts in Culture say Moldovan television products are uncompetitive

Experts in the field of culture say the products of the Moldovan TV stations cannot compete with the achievements of the TV channels from Romania and Russia. At the same time, the local TV channels are focusing on retransmitting foreign TV channels to the detriment of the domestic production. The conclusions were reached by participants in the round tables held within the pilot project “Visions on Cultural Policy for Moldova: from Changes to Viability”, launched by Soros-Moldova Foundation in cooperation with the Amsterdam-based European Cultural Foundation (ECF). Experts estimate that the programmes of the National TV channel “Moldova 1” are of a low quality and cannot compete with other TV stations, including from Moldova. The participants mentioned that the “NIT” TV station, with a significant national coverage, also shows a compilation of programmes retransmitted from various TV stations from Russia and less local programmes, as the about 35 local TV studios are focused mainly on retransmitting popular foreign TV channels to the detriment of their own production. The advertising is thus placed within the TV productions retransmitted from other countries, especially from Russia. At the same time, people taking the floor established that producers of cable television with local coverage, to a great extent, do not produce any programmes, but retransmit in their packages TV channels from Russia, Ukraine, and Romania. The biggest cable TV company is SUN TV Company, which broadcasts in Chisinau and retransmits some tens of local, Russian, Romanian, Ukrainian channels in English, French and Italian. The total number of cable TV operators tops 160. The participants were vexed that only one radio station with national coverage – Radio Moldova, exists in Moldova at present. It also activates a series of stations with regional coverage, which rebroadcast programmes of Romanian and Russian radio stations, with short inputs of own programmes, these being basically newscasts. The local radio stations are placed in most of the districts and count almost 40 stations broadcasting live, and one radio station broadcasting through cable. The public TV stations “Moldova 1” and “Radio Moldova” are financed by the State Budget. The new Audiovisual Code was adopted in July 2006, and it didn’t manage to eliminate the political influence on the activity of the Broadcasting Coordination Council, and on the public company “Teleradio-Moldova”, experts say. Another domain of the cultural industries is the cinema, represented at present by “Moldova-Film” Studio, as well as private studios, which manage to produce advertising and short films, as well as full-length films. According to participants, the activities of the “Moldova-Film” Studio, the cinema patrimony’s preserving leave much to be desired. The speakers state that in order to re-launch the cinema production in Moldova, it is necessary to attract foreign investments, to draw up a law on cinema that will stipulate the mechanism of evaluating, preserving and showing the films kept in the Studio’s archives.