Amendments aimed to make the national broadcasting agreeable to the world practice: head of National Television and Radio Council

“The amendments and annexes to the law on “Television and radio broadcasting” are connected with the cases on the TV channels, which are not solved in the legislation, that’s why we made these annexes,” chairman of the National Television and Radio Council Nushiravan Maharramli told APA while taking a stance on the amendments and annexes made to the law on “Television and radio broadcasting” at the sitting of the parliament on April 3.

He said the amendments were proposed by NTRC two years ago.
“The amendments are mainly of technical character. Some private regional televisions began to sell their channels after the Council was established. There is no problem in changing the founder of a TV channel, but there is problem in getting a license. Sometimes, the new owner of the channel tells us to officialize his document, as he is the owner of the channel. There are clear answers to the question “Who can be the owner of TV channels?” in the legislation. It should be a person not participated in grave crimes. The persons, who were imprisoned for acting against public interests, whose inactivity was proved by court, who are not Azerbaijani citizens and have links to political parties can not be founders of TV channels. We should check all these conditions beforehand,” he said.

Nushiravan Maharramli said the Council faced such a problem when Guba-based Khayal TV channel was being sold. Later Kepez television was sold.
“That’s why we decided to take measures to prevent such cases. The legislation has been specified. The person wishing to be the founder of the channel is to submit an application concerning all necessary requirements,” he said.

Maharramli said according to the law, advertising should take 20 percent of programs in 24-hour broadcasting. It means 12 minutes an hour. “Some TV channels think that if the advertising takes 20 percent of 24-hour broadcasting, they can divide 24 hours to that figure and place 3-hour advertising spots. They are placing the advertising mostly in prime-time, but now they can’t show ad-spots more than 12 minutes an hour”.

Maharramli said a new article about the satellite broadcasting was amended to the law. “According to the amendment, the foreign TV channels are allowed to live broadcast, using of their equipments, from the Azerbaijan’s territory during the certain public-political events, visits of foreign leaders, international sport competitions. Earlier there was no such article in the law”.

The chairman of the council said further the TV channels couldn’t air two programs in same frequency in same time. “The channel can’t show different programs in Baku and Gusar in same time. There was such case in ANS. They think that if they have frequency, they can broadcast different programs in different places”.

According to the amendments, if the Council warns the TV channels for three times a year, it can appeal the court to stop the broadcasting in a month.
Earlier there was no concrete term of the sanction. The sanctions can be imposed against the TV channel for even ten times. The TV channels can be banned for a month by the court decision. In previous law, it was 20-day sanction”.

Maharramli said they aimed to make the national broadcasting agreeable with the world practice.

/APA/