22 December 2022
On December 19-20, 2022, the Independent Media Commission hosted Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA) staff in a two-day workshop. During the two days of the workshop, the representatives of the responsible departments from IMC and AMA had the opportunity to get to know closely the way of organization and operation of the teamwork performed by both regulators. The special feature of this workshop was that for the first time the staff who perform the work on a daily basis had the opportunity to present their activities from the technical level to the legal regulation as well as to exchange their experiences and views regarding the developments of technological innovations in the field of media but also the difficulties they face.
Participating in the workshop from IMC were the departments: Legal, Licensing, Monitoring and Frequency Management. While from the AMA were: the Council of Complaints, the Directorate of Programs and the Directorate of Supervision.
Initially, the participants presented about the role, structure and powers of the two media regulatory authorities. Following the workshop, the structures and competencies of each department and their technical and human capacities as well as their activities were briefly presented.
Monitoring activities and work methodology were presented by the Monitoring Department and Program Directorate, activities during the election campaign such as monitoring of program content - assessment of compliance with the Law and regulations, visits to licensees (mainly monitoring through the field), acceptance and handling complaints from the public about program content as well as monitoring compliance with the Law on Elections during the election period.
Also, the IMC staff had the opportunity to visit the media monitoring offices in the IMC and get to know closely the functioning and work of the Monitoring and Analysis Department and to exchange the best institutional practices regarding media monitoring. On the second day of the study visit, the Shadow Monitoring Day of the work of the AMA staff was carried out in the IMC monitoring office.
As for the handling of complaints by the Legal Department, the Complaints Council and the Supervision Directorate, the methods of processing complaints and other legal cases, respectively the Ex officio procedure (according to the official duty), were presented. Handling of complaints is carried out according to official deadlines and legal deadlines and the legislation for the handling of legal cases includes cases of violation of the Law of the IMC, violation of by-laws and violation of the Law on Elections. The work of the Legal Departments includes the processing of legal cases, the provision of legal opinions, judicial representation and the preparation of the institution's legislative plan.
The functioning of the Complaints Board in the IMC as well as the procedures for the execution of decisions have also been presented.
As for the media environment, the Licensing Department and Frequency Planning Directorate presented the data from IMC and AMA related to: Formulation of Procedures and Criteria for license granting and their renewal, Leadership with licensing Procedures, issuance of licenses through the public tender procedure and issuing licenses through the request procedure (without terrestrial frequency).
Handling licensees' requests and communicating with licensees regarding their various requests such as: license changes, license renewals, license terminations, complaints about transmission frequency interference or signal failure and transmission termination issues . Data were also presented on the number of licensees, licensing categories, broadcast languages and geographic coverage. All data are public in the register of licenses of licensees.