TVK announces allocation of air time for parties

By Dan Poynton

The Mekong Times

Leading state TV channel TVK announced yesterday its allocation of air time to political parties competing in the national election for its daily Equity News election program.Equity News is funded by the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the Australian government.The daily 15-minute program – broadcast after the 7pm news – provides “fair and balanced campaign coverage” during the month-long run-up to the July 27 election, according to a TVK/UNDP press statement.The allocation of air time to the 11 parties running in the election has been endorsed by the National Election Committee and this year gives greater weight to parties fielding candidates in the 2008 election rather than the role they played in past elections, according to the statement.An 80 percent loading goes to parties fielding candidates in all 123 constituencies, and a 20 percent loading to their past performance in the 2003 and 2007 national elections.“Less emphasis has been placed on past history and the privileges of incumbency and more opportunity accorded to opposition and emerging parties with less access to the media between ballots,” said the statement.The Equity News website claims that the program is “seen as a breakthrough in Cambodian broadcasting for its balanced and impartial coverage of the election campaign.”Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL), told The Mekong Times he agrees with the Equity News claim, but stressed all TV channels and media – including TVK – should increase their political coverage between election periods, and should include more opposition opinions about government projects.“The other channels and media should adopt this [Equity News] model; they should be enforced [to do so] through the legal framework,” he said. “Between elections [however] TV channels don’t cover enough. There are a lot of social and development programs, but there should be more political opinion about these programs from the opposition.”Koul Panha said most people in Cambodia watch so much television, that its influence by far out-dominates all other media, and so it is important that TV coverage is more equitable.“In [the] 2003 and 2007 [national elections], the program was fair. In 2008 we will observe,” he said.In conjunction with Equity News, TVK’s Equity Weekly program – running since May 2007 – provides a 40-minute weekly summary of election news every Saturday.