Romania

[RO] Legal Action Taken because of Scenes in TV Magazine Programmes Liable to Corrupt Minors

IRIS 2004-2:1/36

Mariana Stoican

Journalist, Bucharest

In mid-January the Consiliul National al Audiovizualu, lui (National Audiovisual Council ­ CNA) imposed fines on two television broadcasters for breaches of regulations designed to protect minors.

The two private broadcasters, Antena 1 and Pro TV, had both broadcast video footage in their TV magazine programmes of a young person committing suicide. In addition, Antena 1 had broadcast a documentary on child pornography on the Internet including only slightly concealed scenes from one of the allegedly pornographic films involving minors.

The CNA held that in view of their potentially harmful effect, the detailed pictures in reports on subjects of this kind and the prime-time broadcasting slot represented an extreme danger to minors.

In the case of the suicide, the CNA submitted that because of the way in which the report was put together, it could not be clearly established whether the journalists' desire was merely to concentrate on portraying the dramatic facts of this individual case or whether they had not been presenting a "model" for young people, as there was no statement by the programme makers in which they spoke out against suicide as a way out of difficult situations. Consequently, at a special meeting on 15 January 2004, the CNA decided to impose fines of 50,000,000 Romanian lei (ROL) each on the "Intact Culture and Art Company", which is Antena 1's licence holder, and the company, SC Pro TV SA, which is PRO TV's licence holder (exchange rate: ROL 41.054 = EUR 1, meaning that thefine was the equivalent of just over EUR 1,200 for each broadcaster). As indicated in the CNA's statement of 15 January 2004, the penalty was based on section 39, paragraph 1 of the Legea audiovizualului no. 504/2002 (the Audiovisual Act). This provides that the broadcasting of programmes which might damage the physical, mental or moral development of minors and above all the broadcasting of programmes of this sort that contain pornography and gratuitous violence is prohibited.

The CNA also sent all Romanian broadcasters a circular in which it urged them to comply as strictly as possible with the legislation in the audiovisual sector, both where informative programme content and where all contributions to programmes between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. were concerned.