Members and independent experts assess BCC’s activity during one year

Members of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) and independent experts say that the activity of the Council during a year was constructive, but they also point to shortcomings. During the program “Spirit of the Law” produced by the TV channel DTV, the BCC member Vlad Turcanu said that earlier, the Council was a completely closed body, while the decisions were taken in a manner than left room for interpretation. The present composition did not manage to do much and experienced failures. Nevertheless, it took steps in the right direction by discussing, by questioning a decision or another. As to accomplishments, Turcanu said that the BCC managed to impose itself in front of the service providers and to force them to include more television channels in the Romanian language in the package of TV channels. Another member Corneliu Mihalache said that the Council did a lot of work in this period. He admitted that the regulatory authority failed many times, but he stressed that only those that do nothing do not commit mistakes. He said the BBC was, is and will be under political and economic pressure, because the broadcasting area is very sensitive. However, this does not mean that the main stipulations of the legislation were not implemented. The mass media expert Eugeniu Rybca said that the BCC has three basic functions. The first function is to regulate, and in this area it did the least. It did not work out regulations that would explain certain stipulations of the Broadcasting Code or that would eliminate the contradictions existing in the Code, etc. The second function is to monitor the activity of the broadcasters. This function was carried out better that the other two functions, as it performed a prodigious work. The third function is to issue licenses. There were held several contests and important provisions of the Code, such as the transparence of property in the broadcasting area, are still violated, Rybca said. The programme participants reasoned that the Council must make all the broadcasters observe the law and formulate regulations that would explain the Broadcasting Code’s stipulations, which are not always understood by the broadcasters. The BCC members were appointed by the Parliament on 20 October 2006 in compliance with the Broadcasting Code that took effect in August last year. The Council held its first meeting on November 9. Five of the nine Council members were proposed by the Communist MPs, three by the Christian-Democratic MPs and one by the Democratic Party’s faction in the Parliament.