Parliament Adopts New Broadcast Law
Astana Calling, Dec 30, 2011
The Senate of Kazakhstan’s Parliament adopted a new bill on television and radio broadcasting in Astana on December 28.
The bill was adopted after lively discussions at a plenary session of the Senate of Parliament chaired by its speaker Kairat Mami. According to the government, the law has been developed to improve the content and increase access to products featured in the national media, as well as to protect Kazakhstan’s media space against external influence. It is also believed that the new law will regulate the relationships that arise in the sphere of TV and radio broadcasting, defining the rights and responsibilities of its main actors and providing a strong impetus to the development of domestic television and radio services.
President Nazarbayev stressed the need to support Kazakhstan’s mass media in his September 2011 address opening the parliamentary season.
According to Vice Minister of Communications and Information Lyazzat Tanysbai, the new law envisions that the entire country will have a 100% digital television and radio coverage by 2015, and includes provisions to eliminate low-quality content that inflicts psychological or emotional damage on viewers, especially those in the younger age. It also stipulates governmental support of lower-income families to enable them to purchase digital TV devices.
The new provisions were welcomed by the members of parliament who said in the modern age of information technologies appropriate mechanisms were essential for refocusing people’s attention on different priority areas. In their words, mass media should form the nation’s present-day cultural value system.
To this end, the production of domestic television and radio programmes, and films should be enhanced with due attention to high quality and content that would be capable of competing with popular international media products.
Lyazzat Tanysbai said systematic work in the area has been carried out and has produced promising results. For instance, she said, the new children’s TV channel “Balapan” has already won popularity among the Kazakh audiences.
To sustain the trend the law requires Kazakhstan’s cable operators mandatorily to include the entire list of domestic TV channels into their basic packages. Non-resident broadcasters operating in Kazakhstan will, in turn, be required to register by the administrative authorities and follow the requirements of the country’s legislation, involving the ban on advertising of products that are considered illegal or those propagandizing scenes of violence and cruelty.
Foreign electronic media will also be required to register within the next year and follow the Kazakh legislation.
“This does not necessarily mean that the broadcasters will have to open their affiliate branches or sub-offices in Kazakhstan. They will just need to gather some documents, including an application form for the registration and the channel’s subject-matter so that we know they are not going to propagandize religious extremism in our country, for instance,” Lyazzat Tanysbai explained.
In her words, cable operators will be required to broadcast only those channels that were registered with the authorized agencies.
“I think some of them will possibly choose to open representative offices here in Kazakhstan, others will find private companies which will broadcast on their behalf,” she added.
Lyazzat Tanysbai contended the law by no means infringes on freedom of speech: “We know there are NGOs that criticize some of the provisions of the law, but we have to pay due attention to the market as well.”
In addition, the digital format will allow the opening of new niche TV channels. “We suppose a lot of niche TV channels will start working in the country within the nearest future and our goal is to oversee this transient stage to enable even the most remote villages to watch a vast number of international and domestic TV channels,” she said.
Another important aspect is the enhancement of broadcasting in the Kazakh language: by 2018 the Kazakh-language broadcasting ratio will have to amount to 50 percent of every channel’s content. According to Tanysbai, appropriate mechanisms for monitoring and control over compliance of the broadcast content with the requirement have been worked out.
During the session, Senator Gani Kassymov noted it is necessary to create public broadcasting television which would not only meet the aspirations of various social groups, but also qualitatively increase the intellectual wealth, educational and cultural potential of Kazakhstan’s mass media.
While elaborating the legislation, lawmakers received a number of proposals from representatives of non-governmental organisations. They received over 200 letters which were discussed at the sessions of the working group in the course of the year. Some of the amendments were introduced by the MPs themselves. In particular, they suggested dividing competencies between the Government and the authorized agency when defining qualification criteria for mandatory channels to be formed as a result of a tendering, registering and re-registering them, and frequency allocation.
In line with the newly adopted law, an independent advisory body under the Government and a National TV and radio Operator under the auspices of JSC “Kazteleradio” is to be established.
For the bill to come into force, it has to be signed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev within 15 days.
Tags: Balapan, Kazteleradio
