The Stețco Family

The Stețco family holds substantial sway in Moldova's media landscape, with a network of companies and channels including 7TV, Cinema 1, and the Novadsail sales house. 7TV, managed by Nichita Stețco through Media Production TV, broadcasts general-interest content in both Romanian and Russian and shares programming with Cinema 1, owned by his sister-in-law, Irina Stețco.

The Audiovisual Council conducted a monitoring session in May 2024, revealing that several programs, including "Новое утро," "500," "Азбука вкуса," and "7 Days," were aired almost simultaneously on both 7TV and Cinema 1, raising concerns over content originality and scheduling overlap.

Additionally, Media Production TV has been sanctioned multiple times by the Audiovisual Council for violations, such as failing to provide sufficient local content, not submitting recordings for review, and providing biased coverage of socio-political events.

In addition to 7TV and Cinema 1, two other channels associated with the Stețco family — RTR Moldova and Bravo TV — had their broadcasting licenses suspended due to regulatory issues. The license of RTR Moldova was suspended by the Commission for Exceptional Situations in December 2022, while the license of Bravo TV was suspended by the Audiovisual Council in November 2023. The licenses were ultimately revoked in December 2023 at the request of the founders, following a series of warnings and penalties for issues such as inadequate local programming and insufficiently accurate information dissemination. These channels were sanctioned multiple times before their suspension, reflecting regulatory concerns over content compliance, with the Council noting that these stations frequently failed to align with standards aimed at maintaining balanced, locally focused media in Moldova.