Skopje, 29.09.2015. – The Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services hosted a bilateral meeting with representatives of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media of the Republic of Serbia. The aim of the bilateral meeting was to promote mutual relations and exchange experiences in the sphere of media regulation.
The Director of the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services, Mr. Zoran Trajchevski, Ph.D., welcomed the guests, wishing them a pleasant working meeting, and introduced the attending members of the Agency’s Council and its professional services.
The rules for audiovisual commercial communications concerning product placement and sponsorship in particular, the rules for the protection of minors and the possibilities for their harmonized implementation in the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Serbia, as well as the manner of assigning licenses, the license fees for television broadcasting and the process of registering the foreign channels transmitted by the cable operators, were the topics discussed at the meeting of the two regulatory authorities.
The talks focused mostly on finding a solution to the key problems the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services had identified while monitoring the shows originating from the Republic Serbia that are transmitted by the Macedonian broadcasters. These most often refer to product placement and sponsorship, i.e. failure to signal product placement and sponsorship in the programmes, undue promotion or recommendation that directly encourages use or purchase of products or services, frequent interruption of the programmes to show the sponsors, by which the latter receive undue exposure, etc.
With the aim of protecting juvenile audience, the attendees discussed the forms of visual warning and the possibility to mark the same programmes with signs for different categories in different states, as well as the differences regarding the times at which it is allowed to broadcast a certain category of programme. They also tackled the reality show programmes, and both parties concluded unanimously that the contents of some of these programmes have negative impact on the juvenile audience.
The representatives of both regulatory authorities underlined that previous cooperation between the two countries in the sphere of media regulation had been at a high level, but that there still was room for its promotion and expansion.