The Court of Appeals acquitted Chilevisión from paying a fine of 20 UTM for broadcasting betting advertisements during child protection hours. However, the CNTV announced that it will appeal the decision.
Chile.- The Santiago de Chile Court of Appeals overturned a sanction imposed by the National Television Council (CNTV) on the television channel Chilevisión for broadcasting sports betting advertisements during child protection hours.
The CNTV had imposed a fine equivalent to 20 Monthly Tax Units on the channel for violating the proper functioning of television services. The violation occurred when the station broadcast five advertising spots about digital betting platforms during the broadcast of the Chilean national team's match in October 2023.
Subsequently, Chilevisión approached the Court of Appeals arguing a regulatory vacuum regarding digital platforms and pointed out that there is no law in Chilean legislation that prohibits the advertising of betting houses. According to the local media The Clinic, to illustrate this, they argued that various products are advertised daily on television and are not aimed at underage consumers. In response, they accused the CNTV of mistakenly evaluating content aimed at adults and content inappropriate for minors in the same way.
See also: Contracts under scrutiny: calls to review agreements between betting houses and the ANFP of Chile
The Court of Appeals accepted Chilevisión's appeal to avoid the fine and nullified the contested resolution, absolving the licensee of the charges made, due to the fact that there is no norm in the legal system that expressly prohibits the dissemination of such content in advertising spots during protected hours, thus the CNTV's decision violates the principle of specificity applicable to Administrative Sanctioning Law, as the alleged prohibition of content is based on a non-existent assumption, since the dissemination of online betting or advertising related to such betting has not yet been expressly forbidden.
According to the Chilean media, the president of the CNTV, Mauricio Muñoz, stated that “the National Television Council takes note of the resolution of the Santiago Court of Appeals, which we respect but do not share, and therefore we will take the necessary procedural steps to reverse this sentence”.
