The Council for the Promotion of Investment Projects of Strategic Importance does not withdraw permissive documents for broadcasting TV channels based on the Audiovisual Council’s monitoring reports. This was stated by the Council’s chairwoman Liliana Vitu, who said that the decision on the suspension of broadcast licenses takes into account the dubious financing of media institutions and affiliation with persons included in the international sanctions lists, IPN reports.
On August 7, the Council for the Promotion of Investment Projects of Strategic Importance withdrew the permissive broadcast documents of two other television stations: MegaTV and Familia. The head of the Audiovisual Council said the decision to suspend the licenses is not based on monitoring reports on the editorial content of these televisions.
“The strategic investments are not covered by the regulations of the Audiovisual Council. It goes to an amendment to the legislation by which the audiovisual sector was included as a strategic investment area in 2021. Through an amendment, this Council obtained prerogatives to withdraw the permissive documents, but it is the decision of another body. We look at audiovisual content, at its correctness. This Council’s decision is based on financial flows, affiliation with persons who are on international lists. They don’t look at the monitoring reports of the Directors,” Liliana Vițu explained in the talk show “Resumé” on RliveTV.
After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the broadcast licenses of 12 other television stations have been suspended. Liliana Vițu said that many of the media outlets with suspended broadcast documents definitively renounced their licenses.
“Since the beginning of the war, since the broadcast licenses were suspended, initially through the Commission for Emergency Situations, later through this Council (editor’s note: the Council for the Promotion of Investment Projects of Strategic Importance), we have had TV channels that came to us and gave up their broadcast licenses. These are NTV Moldova and RTR Moldova. Subsequently, the Audiovisual Council refused to extend the broadcast license for the channels Primo in Moldova and Familia so as to prevent media concentration because in our reports we already see a concerted activity. We saw that a group of televisions operates in a conglomerate,” said the chairwoman of the Audiovisual Council.
Earlier, through a press release, the Government of the Republic of Moldova announced that all companies operating in the audiovisual sector will be subject to rigorous verification to see who their beneficial owners are so as to determine their involvement in money laundering activities, serious or particularly serious crimes, corruption actions or activities affecting state security or public order.
