Media Watchdog Issued Fines Worth 37 Million Liras In 2014

- Turkey’s media watchdog, the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK), fined TV stations a total of 37 million liras over the course of 2014, according to its annual activity report.

The report also revealed that the watchdog received over 120,000 complaints from viewers last year, a rise of 2.3 percent from 2013.

Viewers mostly complained about soap operas and commercials, and mainly centered on the discontinuing of programs or including content deemed to be against public morality. Some 63 percent of the complaints came from men, while 34 percent came from women.

The top five stations that faced the most complaints were ATV, Kanal D, Show TV and STV, the report stated.

The most common fine was dished out to TV stations for violating the cigarette ban, with fines worth 10 million liras being handed out in the area.

The report also revealed that RTÜK has a total of 413 employees, only 140 of whom are women.

Over the years, RTÜK has fined TV channels for displays of smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages and scenes of sexuality.

The media watchdog has continuously raised eyebrows with controversial fines, recently fining two music channels for airing a music video containing scenes that it deemed to be too sexual.

RTÜK also made headlines by fining a TV station over a drama program featuring a “lip-o-suction kiss,” which it claimed “turned a scene of kissing into eroticism.”

RTÜK also fined the station TV 2 a total of 12,000 liras for broadcasting a dialogue between two women talking about strawberry-flavored contraceptives, in a scene from a series titled “Oh, We Women” (Ah Biz Kadınlar).