Romanian regulator cuts TV station licence

Romania’s National Audiovisual Council (CNA) has taken the unprecedented step of punishing a TV station by halving its licence for a second time within a matter of weeks. According to Mediafax, OTV aired a number of programmes between March 29 and April 8 promoting Dan Diaconescu as the future president of Romania. These, in the CNA’s view, were political advertising contrary to the Broadcasting Act and the regulator reduced the period OTV is allowed to be on air from September 28 to July 4 this year. Earlier, it had been reduced from April 1, 2013 for the same reasons. Diaconescu owns OTV and is both the founder and leader of the Partidul Poporului (People Party).