Parliament approves public television, radio time slots for presidential election coverage

The Standing Bureaus of Parliament on Monday approved the time slots and editorial offers of the public television and public radio broadcaster to cover the November 24 second round of the presidential elections.

TVR proposes editorial project "President for Romania" that provides electoral advertising, electoral debate and information programmes on the TVR1 / TVR1 HD channels, TVR International, TVR Moldova.

Every day until Friday, TVR1 will be hosting 23-minute electoral advertising programmes - spots and electoral materials, from 12:30hrs, while Monday through Wednesday, from 21:00hrs, 52-minute interviews with a candidate or a representative for the candidate are scheduled.

Also, 24-minute election debates will take place from Monday until Wednesday at 22:00hrs, which will be attended by a moderator, political analysts and other politicians than the candidates.

On Thursday, a final debate of at least 100 minutes is scheduled to start at 21:00hrs, where the two candidates are invited to participate. On Friday at 21:00hrs, another debate is scheduled where other politicians and political analysts are invited to participate.

Similarly, electoral shows are also aired on TVR Moldova and TVR International channels.

SRTv says the schedule may be modified depending on the response of the candidates to the invitation to the debate on Thursday, and also on the fact that if one of the candidates holds news briefings that are covered by SRTv outside the allotted time slot, a slot will be extended under similar conditions to the other candidate, according to the law.

The editorial offer of the Romanian public radio includes electoral news bulletins, information on voting, advertorials of electoral offers and election debate shows.

According to the offer, the election news bulletins are aired every day until November 22, at 11:00hrs and 20:00hrs, and the section on voting will be broadcast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:05hrs. Also, the electoral advertising shows will take place Monday through Friday between 18:05hrs and 18:30hrs. Three election debates with the two candidates, moderated by an RRA journalist, will be held on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday between 12:05hrs - 13.00hrs.

The election campaign on radio and television stations - public and private - for the second round of the presidential election started on November 15, at 00:00hrs, to end on November 23, at 07:00hrs. Candidates' access to public radio and television is equal and free.