The Live Broadcast Of Aurel Hermansyah And Atta Halilintar's Engagement Gets Rejected By The National Coalition For Broadcasting Reform

Atta Halilintar and Aurel Hermansyah fiance (Photo: @ aurel.hermansyah)

JAKARTA - Live broadcast of the engagement of Aurel Hermansyah and Atta Halilintar was rejected by the National Coalition for Broadcasting Reform (KNRP), whose list has been circulating this month.

In the list that has been circulating, the process of engagement, traditional ceremony to the marriage ceremony of the two celebrities will be broadcasted from March 13 to April 4, mostly live broadcasts.

Bayu Wardhana of the National Coalition for Broadcasting Reform said this is not the first time a celebrity wedding has been broadcasted live on television.

"This will be like the 100th times, that's why we regret it", said Bayu, quoted by Antara, Saturday, March 13.

He hoped that this time the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission could prevent it from the start instead of giving a warning only after the broadcast is live.

"The assumption is, if it is being broadcasted on YouTube it's up to them if they want it to be a long duration of live broadcast, but this is different. The frequency is limited. It is the state's natural resources that are used. It's fine for infotainment to be broadcasted, but it should be proportional", he explained.

His party regrets if there is an excessive portion of live broadcasts for matters not related to the public interest, but solely for the sake of increase the ratings.

"Something else should have been done, especially in a pandemic situation, it should be for pandemic information, such as vaccines".

In an official statement, the National Broadcasting Reform Commission, which consists of a number of civil society organizations, around 160 academics, and civil society activists, expressed their strong opposition to the plan for all broadcasts that did not represent the broad public interest even though they used publicly owned frequencies.

KNRP also regrets the attitude of the Central Indonesian Broadcasting Commission for not immediately stopping the activity, and wait passively for the broadcast to go live then gave an assessment.

"Whereas it is clear that the broadcast content violates the rights of the people to get higher quality broadcasts", said the KNRP.

Furthermore, the KNRP regrets that the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) does not want to act in accordance with Article 11 of the Broadcasting Code of Conduct, which reads "Broadcasting institutions are obliged to pay attention to benefit and protection for the public interest" and Article 13 Paragraph 2 Broadcast Program Standards which state, "Broadcast programs on personal life issues should not the material displayed and/or presented in the entire contents of the agenda, except for the public interest".

The KNRP also regrets KPI's ignorance of public objections and criticisms through social media, only passively waiting for complaints on the KPI's official complaint channel.

"Shouldn't the KPI representing the interests of the public not have to wait for an official public complaint if it clearly and clearly sees violations of public frequencies in front of their eyes?", wrote the KNRP.

Furthermore, the KNRP stated that it would continue to supervise and monitor the performance of the KPI Commissioner and reminded the KPI's obligation to critically and seriously work to exercise its authority if it saw situations that were detrimental to the public in the broadcasting sector.