Realitatea Plus, fined by CNA for the “trick” used on the day it had to suspend its broadcast

The National Audiovisual Council (CNA) announced that in Tuesday's meeting it decided to impose a fine of 2,500 lei on Realitatea Plus because on February 19, when the broadcast of the television station was suspended for three hours, the text of the sanction that ran on the station during that interval was not broadcast on the YouTube and TikTok social media channels. Also on Tuesday, a penalty of 20,000 lei was imposed on Romania TV.

The CNA said that the sanctions were decided on the basis of the reports prepared by the Monitoring Directorate as a result of self-referrals and referrals received.

Romania TV was sanctioned for the news from January 23, when, according to CNA, the station presented headlines such as: “Resistance from the Environment causes another water crisis”; “Allegations: Investments at 11 dams, totally blocked”; “Water supply at risk”; “The water crisis into which the news reporter Rezist throws us again”; “11 dams blocked by minister, water supply at risk”.

Realitatea Plus was fined because, on February 19, when the broadcast of the television station was suspended for three hours, it did not broadcast the text of the sanction from that moment on the social media channels Tu decizi (YouTube) and Realitatea Plus (TikTok).

On February 19, the broadcast of Realitatea Plus was suspended for three hours as a result of a sanction, between 18:00 and 21:00. In this interval, instead of the usual television broadcast, the text of the sanction was broadcast. The Media page remarked at the time that the measure was not applied to the “Tu decizi” YouTube channel, where the station continued its regular schedule.

The CNA's decision to suspend the broadcast was taken after numerous violations of the audiovisual legislation that took place, for 10 days, between November 1-21, 2025, before the official start of the election campaign for the Capital City Hall. Ten shows were problematic during this period.