The Second Television and Radio Authority

The Second Authority regulates the field of commercial media by granting franchises to broadcasting bodies, determining rules and guidelines for the operations of television and radio franchisees and supervising their performance.

The Second Authority conducts a number of activities in order to safeguard the public interest:

Formulating the rules and guidelines that guide and bind the activities of the franchisees.

Involvement in legislative procedures and influencing the format of the Israel television and radio media market.

Verifying the adherence to the law regarding cross ownership and owner identity

Examination of the programming schedules, their suitability to a diverse audience and a diversity of tastes, and promoting the inclusion of contents of public, social and cultural interest.

	For Television: Determining the requirements for production suitability (adhering to financial measures in order to guarantee quality productions); for diversity in programs and contents; for improving quality contents and adhering to genre quotas (mainly minimum quotas for local productions and priority programs during prime time); and close captions for the hearing impaired.
	For Radio: Determining franchise regions and characteristics.

Ensuring the adherence to rules and guidelines of ethics, such as: freedom of expression and the public's right to know, providing the right of response, issues of good taste and more.

Monitoring broadcast commercials, especially on issues of misleading advertisement violence, offense to public feelings and surreptitious advertising.

Ensuring the franchisees adhere to the permitted amount of advertising time and exercise responsible judgment regarding proper scheduling of advertisements.

Examining correct use of the language and proper translation of television broadcasts.

Engineering control of the technical quality of broadcasting and reception by the viewers/ listeners.

Control Activities:

	Sample viewing and listening to television and radio programs.
	Examination, analysis and approval of programming schedules.
	Identification of trends and ongoing monitoring of broadcasts.
	Evaluation of selected content matter, following complaints filed by the public.
	Receiving feedback from the public and reviewing complaints.
	Dealing with deviations from franchise terms.

Deviations from Franchise Terms:

When the Second Authority identifies what seems to be a breach of the franchise terms, it begins with a process of clarifying the issue with the franchisee and conducting internal discussions in the violations committee. Upon completion of the process, the Second Authority determines whether or not the event will be noted as a breach of the franchise terms.

When the Second Authority concludes that the event was a breach of the terms, it holds a variety of methods for enforcement and sanctioning the franchisees, including fines and revocation of advertising times. The performance of the franchisees is taken into consideration when the Second Authority discusses the extension of the franchise period.

The control activities and results are published to the public in periodic reports.