The Chair of AMA, Armela Krasniqi, presented the 2023 Annual Report to the Deputies of Parliament of the Republic of Albania. In her speech, she provided a summary of AMA’s key activities during the past year.
Among AMA’s priorities in 2023, Krasniqi highlighted the legal changes made to the AMA’s organic law, also known as the transposition of EU Directive 2018/1808. According to Krasniqi, the entry into force of these changes, created concrete conditions for progress in guaranteeing the right to information and freedom of expression, increasing transparency in the AVMSPs ownership, as well as promoting self-regulation and co-regulation of the media market. This change was followed by the drafting of a regulation specifically addressing transparency in ownership structures and the declaration of other data related to AVMSPs licensing/authorization.
Another completed task by AMA during 2023 was strengthening the fight against television piracy, to prevent and avoid cases of unauthorized re-broadcasting of live events by entities that do not have the rights or broadcasting agreements. In this regard, at the end of 2023, AMA proposed new legal amendments, including the introduction of the concept of television piracy into the law and its criminalization.
Additionally, concerning the compliance of broadcasting rights, throughout 2023, AMA carried out a significant number of inspections on cable/IPTV/OTT operators in the field. These inspections were carried out based on the complaints filed by rights holders entities, as well as primarily by AMA itself. “It is worth noting that the majority of complaints about violations of broadcasting rights in 2023 were related to the phenomenon of television piracy carried out by unauthorized entities not authorized by AMA to provide audiovisual services,” said the Chair of AMA.
“Specifically, these concerns involve ISP (Internet Service Provider) entities that engage in unauthorized television piracy through the internet. Regarding this phenomenon, AMA has sent 28 official practices to AKEP to take measures, leading to the closure of 128 websites that were violating provisions of the Law “On Audiovisual Media in the Republic of Albania,” as amended.
As the AMA Chair testified regarding this issue in front of the Commission, the Directorate of Inspection and Supervision at AMA also requested that various Video Sharing Platforms (VSPs) remove 19 links from their accounts that were broadcasting audiovisual content without the appropriate broadcasting rights. Furthermore, under the AMA-AKEP Memorandum, which also predicts the creation of joint inspection teams, in 2023, AMA conducted 16 joint inspections with ISPs across the country.
“The television piracy phenomenon done via the internet is both a concerning and complicated to identify because, in most cases, the audiovisual content being illegally broadcasted comes from servers located in different countries around the world and is not hosted within the territory of the Republic of Albania. For this reason, identifying them becomes very difficult,” said Krasniqi.
The new Broadcasting Code approval was another successfully completed commitment by AMA during 2023. According to Krasniqi, in the 13 discussion tables organized by AMA for the Broadcasting Code, 87 media professionals and representatives of media associations, 78 representatives of associations of affected interest groups, 79 media and communication experts, 70 representatives of central and local institutions, and 17 experts and representatives of international organizations and institutions participated in the discussions. The Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Tirana, which closely followed the entire process, also facilitated the input of the Council of Europe’s expert opinion on the draft code.
The new Code contains 11 sections, compared to the 8 sections of the previous Code. The added sections focus on fighting discrimination, promoting gender equality, and preventing and fighting hate speech in audiovisual broadcasts. The existing sections of the Code have been revised and expanded by 60%.
Among the evaluated tasks of AMA during 2023 was the highly significant initiative of starting discussions with interest groups regarding the Audience Measurement process. In these meetings, AMA presented to the stakeholders, including AVMSPs and marketing associations, concrete models of audience measurement implementations from EU member states, as examples that could be adapted to the dynamics of the audiovisual market development in our country. In this process, which continued with further significant steps, AMA played a key facilitating role.
Additionally, the introduction of sign language interpretation in the news editions of two national television channels was one of the priorities of AMA’s work in 2023. Following an important agenda of meetings and participation in conferences abroad, with EU institutions and regulatory authorities from the region and Europe, was also mentioned by AMA Chair as another key engagement from the past year. Among these activities, the organization of the 22nd Plenary Assembly of the Mediterranean Network of Regulatory Authorities (MNRA) in Tirana stood out. The event brought together leaders and experts from regulators across Southeast Europe, EU member states, the President of ERGA, senior representatives from UNESCO, and prominent figures from major video sharing platforms like META and TikTok. With a unanimous vote from MNRA member delegations, the Chair of AMA was elected to hold the next Presidency.
The handling of the complaints submitted to the Council of Complaints, as well as the monitoring and inspection work of AMA, in accordance with the law “On Audiovisual Media in the Republic of Albania,” as amended, has been another specific commitment and work priority during 2023, set by the Chair of AMA. According to Krasniqi, in 2023, the number of complaints increased by 7.9%, reaching 390 complaints reviewed by the Council.
“In the framework of complaint management, the Council of Complaints has requested to AVMSPs the submission of claims in 12.6% of the cases, organized hearings in 2 cases, issued a warning in 49.2% of cases, and imposed financial sanctions in 6 cases,” Krasniqi said.
On the other hand, during the thematic review of the content broadcasted in 2023, the monitoring and analysis teams conducted verification of 114 audio/audiovisual broadcast cases for their compliance with legal requirements. From this verification, 49 cases of violations were found according to the following typology: 55% hidden advertising, 33% ethical violations and protection of minors, 10% health and pharmaceutical advertising, and 2% political advertising.
For 49 of the detected violations by the monitoring teams, AMA sent official letters to AVMSPs, drawing attention to 48 cases, while in one case, a fine was issued.
Regarding the inspection activity, the Chair of AMA reported that through inspection teams, on 2023, 332 checks were conducted on AVMSPs activities. Of these, 168 were inspections based on complaints, and 164 were monitoring activities, resulting in 9 decisions for financial sanctions against AVMSPs entities. In 3 other cases, attention was drawn to them.
In response to the questions from Deputy Andia Ulliri, the Chair of AMA highlighted as a new development the ongoing discussions between the institution and Video Sharing Platforms to reach cooperation agreements, aiming to start a process of regulating online audiovisual content. “We are in talks with major platforms like YouTube and Meta and we expect to soon finalize an agreement with TikTok to open a dedicated channel for reporting harmful content published on this platform,” Krasniqi said.
