New regulations for cable broadcasting

Starting next year, contracts with cable suppliers in Romania might include specific quality
regulations for cable broadcasting services, in order to enable clients to determine whether the services they receive are worth their costs, the National Communication Regulatory Agency announced.

The quality of the broadcast signal and the contents of cable suppliers’ lists of programmes were discussed in Bucharest last Tuesday.

By the end of 2012, the contracts issued by cable suppliers will have to specify the quality of the services being supplied as well as the terms and clauses of the said contract.
Moreover, each supplier will be obliged to devise ways of measuring the quality of cable
broadcasting and post them on their website.

At the 16th edition of the Cable Communication Convention, the president of ANCOM, Cătălin Marinescu, warned that these procedures were mandatory in order to render cable suppliers’ activities more transparent.

“I would like to remind you that there has been a transition period and that by January 20 next year you will have to include the parameters of your supplied services in your contracts.”

“Allow me to remind you that there is no mandatory standard of quality for the supply of Internet services, but it is mandatory to inform your users as to the quality of the services that you can provide,” Cătălin Marinescu stated.

The cable industry, “under the direct influence of technological development”

Deputy Varujan Pambuccian, a member of the Information Technology Commission of the
Chamber of Deputies, who participated in the debate, specified that the cable industry is under the influence of technological development, as well as of the quality of programme contents.

Thus, as far as technology is concerned, we are doing well, but we are not yet sufficiently
prepared for the new demands on the market, Varujan Pambuccian asserted.

As to the quality of programme contents, Varujan Pambuccian believes that we are facing a major supply crisis.

“Please note that print media has almost disappeared, having been replaced with something we are having difficulty defining and I do not know if the situation is any better for television.”

“Many television channels have chosen a highly specialized direction for their programme
contents, while others have taken to borrowing from tabloid contents, because they know no other way to keep up their ratings,” Varujan Pambuccian stated.

Radu Petri, the president of the Cable Communication Association, believes that there is an urgent need to pass a law regarding the infrastructure of telecommunication, which should come to the aid of cable suppliers, who have already registered a drop in sales.

Translated by: Roxana-Andreea Dragu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University