Radio Stations in the Focus of the BC’s Attention: 5 Are Publicly Warned, and Two Are Fined 5 000 Lei Each

The Broadcasting Council (BC) keeps monitoring radio stations in terms of ensuring the amount of local and Romanian-language content. At the meeting on September 23, such stations as Mega HIT, Diaspora FM, Maestro FM, Publika FM, and Bas FM were warned. At the same meeting, Vocea Besarabiei and Radio Noroc were fined 5 000 lei each for having amended the license data without requests for approval from the BC.

During the meeting held on September 23, upon the initiative of Ana Gonta, the BC Vice-President, the results of monitoring such stations as Drochia FM, Vocea Basarabiei, Mega HIT, Diaspora FM, Maestro FM, Publika FM, and Bas FM were examined in terms of compliance with the provisions on the mandatory amount of local products and broadcasting in Romanian. According to the monitoring report, only two stations from the list, Drochia FM and Vocea Besarabiei, did not breach these regulations during the monitored period. The other five stations either failed to provide the amount of 6 hours of local products or did not broadcast 80% of content in Romanian. For such breaches, the five broadcasters were sanctioned with public warnings.

The meeting of September 23 was the sixth session with this issue on its agenda. Since August, 29 other radio stations have been sanctioned with public warnings for the same type of breaches. According to Ana Gonta, during the next meeting of the authority, a report of monitoring the radio stations in this regard will be examined.

At the same meeting, a petition filed by a citizen named Roman Bubnov was examined; he informed the Council about the modifications in the list of associates of Vocea Media Company, mentioning “the transfer of the 50% share to the citizen Ursu Valentina and requesting information on compliance with the legal provisions in the context of amending the list of associates.”

The BC control demonstrates that, on July 11, Vocea Media informed the Council about changing the administrator, without informing of the intention to modify the structure of its associates. Thus, the article which stipulates that media service providers have an obligation to file a written request for approval of any amendments in the documents and data regarding the broadcasting license from the Broadcasting Council was breached. If the BC accepts the amendments, they are introduced free of charge.

Orest Dabija, the BC member, affirmed at the meeting that such situations resulted from the “ignorance of the legal framework which cannot be an excuse.” However, he suggested applying a minimum punishment. The BC members considered the petition and fined Vocea Bessarabiei with 5000 lei.

For similar breaches, Noroc radio station was also fined 5000 lei: its administrator, Noroc Media Company, had amended the list of associates, informing the Council post-factum without requesting a written approval from the BC for introducing such amendments.

At the end of the session, the BC examined and approved the final draft of the Regulation on Retransmission Authorization after the document was debated during the public consultations. With the vote of six members who attended the meeting (four offline and two online), the Regulation was filed for expert assessment and approval to the Ministry of Justice, the National Anticorruption Center, the Ministry of Economy, the Competition Council, and the State Commission for Regulation of Entrepreneurial Activity.