Experts say BCC had a formal and superficial approach to the problem of reorganising local public broadcasters

The Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) didn’t observe the legal provisions concerning the reorganisation of local public broadcasters. Whereas three of them were left to operate in the old format, which runs counter to the laws in operation, two broadcasters were reorganised and one liquidated – with breaches of law in both cases. These are the findings of a report for the project “Monitoring of Broadcasting Code Implementation”, made public at a news conference today. According to Eugeniu Rabca, expert of the Electronic Press Association APEL, the case study on the reorganisation of local public broadcasters shows that, a year after the enactment of the Code, three radio stations - Radio Balti, Teleradio Balti, and TVK-24 – are still broadcasting in the old format, without being subjected to reorganisation procedures, as the Code prescribes. The BCC limited its actions to sending letters to the founders of the respective stations. Another local public radio station – Unda Adevarului – was liquidated at the request of its founder, though, Eugeniu Rabca says, its licence should have been withdrawn long ago, as it had delayed the prescribed start of broadcasting. Only two local stations - Antena C and Euro TV Chisinau – were reorganised, but with serious breaches of law in both cases, the expert said. Under the Broadcasting Code, the Coordination Council was assigned the special task to reorganise and align the broadcasting services founded by the local authorities with the provisions of the new legislation. Nevertheless, the BCC treated this task formally and superficially, declining any responsibility, and without making use of their rights and authority, Eugeniu Rabca added. The report authors point out that the BCC didn’t assume responsibility for implementing precisely the provisions of the law and finalising the reorganisation process in the spirit of the Code. In addition, it didn’t react promptly, adequately and consistently to the breaches of law which in some cases caused conflicts with public impact, and in other cases affected the public interest. The Coordination Council is also blamed for not seeking and finding ways of cooperating with the local authorities that founded public broadcasters in order to adequately implement the provisions of the Code, as well as for the fact that it did not formulate a reorganisation concept to safeguard the public interest, diversity and pluralism in the audiovisual field. At the conference, the experts also presented the results of a new monitoring report on the newscasts aired by the national radio and TV station, and a case study concerning the response of the Teleradio-Moldova’s Supervisory Board to the warning made by the BCC. The project “Monitoring of Broadcasting Code Implementation”, financed by the Soros Foundation Moldova, seeks to institute a public control mechanism over the way the new broadcasting legislation is implemented in Moldova.