BCC will lay down strict rules for program services providers

The Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) will decide the conditions for rebroadcasting programs at its next meeting. The members of the Council avoided making a final decision at the December 23 meeting so as not to omit certain aspects and have to introduce amendments or even annul the document, Info-Prim Neo reports. The need to adopt new conditions for the program service providers appeared after the largest provider in Moldova, Sun Communications, questioned the legality of an earlier decision made by the BCC, whereby the providers were forced to include all the national TV channels in the list of rebroadcast channels. Sun Communications said the national channels are not so popular with the public and should pay for being rebroadcast. In this connection, the members of BCC decided to lay down strict rules for all the program service providers so that each of them knows their obligations. Given that the networks contain a different number of channels, the BCC decided that the number of national TV channels that will be rebroadcast free of charge should be proportional to he number of rebroadcast channels. A final decision will be made at the next BCC's meeting, but it was already agreed that the networks containing up to 40 rebroadcast channels wmust include at least 30% of national TV channels, while those containing more than 40 channels – 25%. This condition does not apply to the providers that will rebroadcast all the national TV channels and whose network will include over 70 channels. The providers will be allowed not to rebroadcast the channels that they will not be able to receive for technical reasons, but they will have to notify the BCC of this. In order to protect the consumers' right to complete and objective information, the providers will be obliged to include the free program services of the broadcasters working on the territory controlled by the Moldovan constitutional authorities in the basic package. If the figures in the final decision remains unchanged, Sun Communications, which rebroadcasts more than 120 channels, will have to include at least 30 national TV channels in the social package. As there are not so many TV channels in the country, there will be included only the channels that will want to.