Skopje, 29 March 2024 – With the aim of clarifying how the rules of the Electoral Code shall be implemented, the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services has adopted Guidelines for Broadcasters for the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.
The Guidelines cover the rules concerning the limits for paid political advertising (PPA), the marking of the entity that has ordered the advertisement, the distribution of airtime in the newscasts of the Public Broadcaster, the free political presentation on the Parliament’s Channel, the provision of accessibility of the content related to the electoral process for the persons with disabilities, the rules for reporting on the days of election silence, particularly during the period of overlapping of the two electoral processes.
During the Presidential election campaign, in the first round of voting, broadcasters may air a total of nine minutes and thirty seconds of additional advertising time per clock hour of live broadcasted programme, exclusively intended for PPA. The Guidelines define precisely the distribution of these minutes among the seven list submitters/candidates for President. In the second round of voting, the total PPA airtime will depend on the PPA time used by the list submitters/presidential candidates who will continue their election campaigns into the second round.
During the election campaign for the Parliamentary Elections, broadcasters are entitled to an additional nine minutes and thirty seconds of advertising per clock hour, exclusively for PPA. After the verification of the submitted MP candidate lists on the part of the State Election Commission, the Agency will supplement the Guidelines for Broadcasters for the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections accordingly.
During the election silence for the Presidential elections, on 23 and 24 April 2024 (until 19:00 hrs), the election campaign for the Parliamentary elections shall continue, however, the media coverage in the news and in the special-information shows of the participants in the election campaigns for both electoral processes, shall halt.
The Public Broadcasting Service and the state-level television stations that will be airing paid political advertising should broadcast content related to the electoral process in a format accessible to people with disabilities.
The Guidelines for Broadcasters for the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections are available at this link