Bulgaria

[BG] Violation of the volume of an advertisement

IRIS 2015-5:1/6

Rayna Nikolova

New Bulgarian University

On 26 February 2015, the Council of Electronic Media published on its website a penalty statement for a violation of the Radio and Television Act.

On 2 November 2014, on the "Nova TV" channel in the "Dikoff" programme were included marked blocks with commercial messages. The measurements of the audio signal, performed with the “TSL Pam Pico” system and certified by measurement protocols, show a difference between the volume of the broadcast commercial messages (advertising and self-promotions) and that of the rest of the programme. The measurement results show that the volume at the time of broadcasting of the total of two mentioned marked advertising blocks is higher than the volume of the rest of the programme.

The Radio and Television Act prohibits audiovisual commercial messages to be broadcast with a volume higher than the volume of the rest of the programme.

By allowing the broadcasting on the "Nova TV" channel on 2 November 2014 of the above-mentioned advertising blocks (audiovisual commercial messages) with a higher volume than the volume of the rest of the programme, the media service provider "Nova Broadcasting Group" AD violated Article 75, paragraph 10 of the Radio and Television Act (IRIS 2013-5/12).