Colombia. The Communications Regulation Commission, CRC, advanced a project with a simplification approach that allows to continue advancing in the work carried out to consolidate a regulatory framework conducive to protecting the rights of viewers and users, maintaining healthy competition in the markets and guaranteeing quality in the provision of the service.
It is the revision of 136 articles of Resolution 5050, which regulate the conditions of operation and service of television in the aforementioned areas, which had the participation of television operators, associations and guilds of the audiovisual sector, civil society organizations and related state entities, in all stages of the regulatory project.
As a result of this work, the Commission updates a total of 99 articles (27 deleted and 72 modified) which simplifies and clarifies the regulatory measures on programming, institutional spaces, advertising and marketing of the public television service, under the premise that a television with fewer regulatory burdens becomes more viable and, consequently, you can offer better programming to your audiences.
One of the changes is the unification of the programming slots that keep children and adolescents protected from content that is not suitable for their development. Thus, it is established that, between 7:00 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., children's or adolescent programming may be broadcast, without this implying an increase in the quota of this type of content that operators have to broadcast; This provides greater autonomy to program content for different ages, without neglecting the protection of viewers.
In the same sense, to promote the generation of digital subchannels in Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) aimed at children and adolescents, those operators that broadcast this type of signal are exempt from the quota for children's and adolescents' programming on the main channel.
To promote national culture, the measure is maintained that open TV channels that program foreign films must broadcast national cinematographic works for 10% of that time; However, to make it easier for operators to comply with the rule and encourage the exhibition of the historical catalog of national cinema, an incentive is generated that gives more weight to works that are broadcast for the first time on the channel.
With respect to the institutional spaces that operators must broadcast to guarantee the promotion of issues of public interest from State entities, the distribution is updated and organized, establishing a maximum duration of 30 seconds, programming five (5) in prime time, that is, from 7:00 p.m. to 10 p.m., and ten (10) from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
In terms of direct and indirect advertising on television, the burden on operators in campaigns to prevent alcohol abuse is reduced, with the possibility for the State to contribute pieces to said campaign, unifying the schedules for broadcasting between 9:30 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. and reducing the proportion of alcohol campaign time that these operators must generate according to the time of alcohol advertising that they have to generate. Issued.
Likewise, restrictions on time and advertising formats in regional channels are eliminated, which allows these channels to receive much more advertising advertising that strengthens them financially and allows the generation of more and better content.
"The simplification of the measures responds to the changes and challenges that the television service has experienced as a result of the emergence of innovative production and broadcasting dynamics, such as those derived from digital audiovisual services, new advertising models and the growth of social networks where audiovisual content is shared. We hope that this update will boost Colombian television and strengthen the national audiovisual industry," explained Felipe Augusto Díaz Suaza, Commissioner and Executive Director (E) of the CRC.
Check the new regulations by clicking here.
