Everyone should take care of their own, BCC member says about Realitatea TV

The Romanian television channel Realitatea TV, which broadcast live last week’s protests in Chisinau, disappeared from screens in Moldova in the evening of April 7. Asked by the people what happened, the cable operators invoke technical glitches. At the same time, the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) did not ask for explanations from the companies that relay this channel as they received no complains from the consumers, Info-Prim Neo reports. Asked by reporters to comment on the disappearance of Realitatea TV after Wednesday‘s meeting of the BCC, member of the Council Vitalie Tabunshchic said that no subscriber complained to the BCC about this. Asked if the Council investigated the case, Tabunshchic said that the BCC takes care first of all of the national producers of programs. He implied yet that the retransmission of the channel was halted because there are certain interests at stake. “You know the subtext very well. Everybody does what they want and what they intend to obtain,” he said. “If the broadcasting companies from the East are not signatories of the Convention, those from the West should observe it. This is my opinion. The European Convention on Cross-Border Television clearly says that the signatories should take care of their own and not throw wood in somebody else’s fire.” The BCC president Gheorghe Gorincioi refused to talk to the reporters. The representatives to the BCC of the largest cable TV operator in Moldova, Sun Communications, also did not want to comment on the disappearance of Realitatea RV, saying they are not entitled to answer such questions. According to the Broadcasting Code, the providers broadcast programs under a retransmission authorization issued by the BCC, with the consent of the producer of the programs. The providers must inform the BBC beforehand about the changes made to the structure of the services furnished. Otherwise, they face fines. After the April 6-8 events, the incumbent president and leader of the Communist Party Vladimir Voronin repeatedly accused Romania of conducting from outside a putsch in Moldova, staged by the Moldovan opposition. One of the arguments invoked by Voronin was the fact that the Romanian mass media broadcast the events live and interpreted them as “revolution in Chisinau’.