By Evie Andreou
FOUR local TV channels have received fines amounting to €11,500 the Cyprus Radio Television Authority announced on Thursday.
The fines include covert advertisements on live TV shows, transmission in the family zone of unsuitable material, scenes of violence in films marked with the wrong age rating and a tele-competitions transmitted in a time zone forbidden by law.
The head of the authority Neophytos Epameinondas said that the majority of stations pay the fines imposed on them, and that there were only very few cases where some refused to pay.
He said organisations have the right to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court and in case they refuse to pay, the authority has the right to sue.
“With the exception of some cases, the authority wins the majority of these cases so it is in the organisations’ best interest to pay the fines,” Epameinondas said.
He added that in the event that some organisations had cash-flow problems the authority makes arrangements to facilitate them.
The most heavily fined was CyBC. It received a €1,000 fine for the disguised promotion of a children’s clothes shop on the morning show ‘Kali sas Mera’ in April and €8,000 for the promotion of books written by an author that was a guest in the afternoon talk show ‘Mazi sto RIK’ in May.
According to the authority, in both cases there was violation of the regulation stating that “audiovisual commercial communications shall be readily recognisable as such” and that “disguised audiovisual commercial communication shall be prohibited”.
In September CyBC also received a €16,000 fine for the promotion of the Zone Diet again at ‘Mazi sto RIK’ where the diet was repeatedly promoted by the presenter and her guest. The ruling had said that the interview clearly went beyond the realm of information and into advertising, by encouraging viewers to try it themselves.
PLUS TV was fined €1,500 for transmitting the programme ‘Quiz Fun’ between 12pm and 2.15pm, in a time zone that it is forbidden by law, and MEGA channel and CAPITAL TV received a €500 fine each, the first for transmitting a TV series rated for children over 15 in the family zone and the latter for transmitting a film with the wrong age rating.
The authority also announced five other cases where TV stations were warned about transmitting unsuitable material in family time zones, for the promotion of alcohol in under-age rated programmes, as well as for transmitting comments that showed disrespect toward a person who expressed a complaint during a talk-show phone-in.
