A meeting of the Audiovisual Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan was held

A regular meeting of the Audiovisual Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan was held on 11 September 2023. Two issues were discussed at the meeting.

First of all, the appeal of "Gammanet" LLC received by the Audiovisual Council for license of the operator of the universal platform was considered, and the documents submitted by the applicant were discussed. As a result of the discussions, the relevant decision was made to grant the universal platform operator’s license to "Gammanet" LLC (operator name: "Gammanet TV").

Further, the results of monitoring conducted on advertisements by both bodies in accordance with the "Action Plan for joint activities of the State Antimonopoly and Consumer Market Control State Service under the Ministry of Economy and the Audiovisual Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan" were discussed.

As a result of the re-monitoring carried out on the basis of appeals sent by the State Antimonopoly and Consumer Market Control State Service to the Audiovisual Council, systematic violations of a number of requirements of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Advertising" were revealed on the majority of nationwide terrestrial television channels during June 2023.

Thus, during the specified month, violations of the requirements of the Article 4.3 of the Law "On Advertising" (Goods which production (sale) is licensed, and certified goods can be advertised only in the presence of relevant supporting documents. In this case, the license and certificate number, the date of issue and the name of the issuing authority must be indicated in the advertisement) on "ARB", "Xazar TV", "CBC Sport TV" channels, the Article 33.1 (Advertisements of financial, banking, insurance, investment services, securities, must include the legal name, legal address of the provider of these services, the name, surname, patronymic, address and contact information of the natural persons, issuer of securities) on "ATV", "ARB", "Space TV", "Xazar TV", "ITV", "CBC Sport TV" channels, the Article 33.4 (If a consumer credit advertisement provides information about any credit charges, consumers must also be given the information specified in paragraphs 33.4.1-33.4.5 of the specified Law) on "ATV", "ARB", "Space TV", "Xazar TV", "Real TV", "ITV", "CBC Sport TV" channels were observed. A preliminary discussion on monitoring for July and August was also held during the meeting. It turned out that the violations committed in June were also repeated in these months, but with less intensity.

After the discussions, the Audiovisual Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan warned the broadcasters about application of administrative sanctions in case of repetition of such cases in the new television season.