Public Warning for Three Radio Stations Which Did Not Provide Local Broadcasts in Romanian

The Broadcasting Council publicly warned such radio stations as Bugeac FM, Albena, and Radio.md for the breaches regarding the amount of local and Romanian-language broadcasts they were supposed to provide according to the legislation. The decision was made on September 2 upon initiative of Ana Gonta, the BC Vice-President.

According to the monitoring results regarding several radio stations, it was stated that Bugeac FM and Radio.md did not comply with the provision of the Code of Audiovisual Media Services stipulating that media service providers have “to broadcast, within the framework of radio broadcasting services, local audiovisual programs with the following daily average duration: at least 6 hours for each audiovisual media service – for local private media service providers.”

Albena radio station was sanctioned for breaching the article stipulating that “media service providers whose audiovisual media services are intended for communities in administrative territorial units where an ethnic minority represents a majority shall have the obligation to broadcast local audiovisual programs in proportion of at least 25% in the Romanian language, as well as own-produced audiovisual programs in the language of the minority.”

At the same meeting, Liliana Vitu, President of the Broadcasting Council, reminded the media service providers that, since September 1, 2022, the decision on the new classification of audiovisual media service providers into the national, regional, and local ones came into force. Hence, depending on the category, obligations for the radio stations and TV channels on producing and broadcasting local audiovisual programs and programs in the Romanian language are stipulated.