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Karl Schembri
Investments Minister Austin Gatt has made it clear that Public Broadcasting Services will have to make do with its current level of funding to fulfil its public service obligations in the wake of calls from the editorial board for an assessment of the costs required to produce quality programmes.
“I understand the editorial board is calling for more funds to broadcast more programmes,” Gatt said. “It’s like going home and telling my wife ‘this is my salary’ and she insists she needs more money to cook different food. We have to live with what we have. Everyone wants more money.”
The editorial board said in its first annual report since last year’s restructuring process that its members had been told so many times about the financial problems facing the national broadcasting station that it “felt constrained to accept particular situations” even though there were better editorial alternatives for the station.
“Given that we were repeatedly informed that the company’s resources for productions are limited, programme proposals we received which requested co-production with PBS were disadvantaged when we came to select programmes,” the board said.
It said the station should have at least one current affairs programme produced by the PBS newsroom but this would require a lot of resources and finances.
“The board was informed that the proposals for a daily 10-minute, current affairs broadcast in its October schedule and a weekly 30 minute programme in its February schedule were refused because of financial considerations,” the annual report said.
“It’s an opinion,” Gatt said dismissively, adding that he still has to establish how money was being spent on programmes at PBS.
“I still don’t know how much they are spending on each programme,” he said.
Although Gatt steered the massive restructuring process and decides who chairs PBS, the funding for the station’s public service obligations is provided by the Tourism and Culture Ministry.
For the first year the station was allocated Lm500,000 for its core public service obligations while the so-called extended public service obligations have to be funded by the station.
The board is now calling for a study into the financial needs of PBS to meet its mission.
The board also complained of the absence of a news manager – a clear handicap for the newsroom where editorial decisions are mainly being taken by two news coordinators.
The board notes that the PBS news service still has no structure for regular court, parliament and European Union affairs reporting.
There is still no cataloguing of visual material with the consequence that a lot of time is wasted to find the needed footage. Most of the off-diary news items are not being treated with the depth they require, while other less important items are given more prominence. Also, the aesthetic presentation of the news is “far from the desired levels”.
Because of the PBS structures, there is still the mentality that the radio news bulletins are seen as superfluous by the journalists.
“There is still the mentality that the newsroom exists mainly for the 8pm bulletin,” the board said. “There is still not enough awareness of the fact that Radio Malta is one of the largest radio stations in the country and that its bulletins require to be given maximum attention of the PBS newsroom.”
Radio Malta is the only one of the main radio stations that still does not have a newspaper analysis.
The board said it remains committed to get the PBS newsroom to realise it was “there for the service of its audiences and nobody else’s”.
Journalists and cameramen need to be more inquisitive with whoever is in a position of authority, the board said, and journalists should investigate, more than merely report the news.
“News bulletins shouldn’t be mainly the mirror of the tip of the iceberg of society but more of a magnifying glass of the invisible parts of society,” the board said.
Despite a high percentage of Maltese productions on TVM – 87 per cent – there are no signs that quality broadcasts are high or increasing, the board said.
On the other hand, teleshopping and commercial broadcasts dominate the station’s schedule. In one week, the commercial airtime makes up 42 per cent of the schedule, as opposed to the core public service broadcasts at 27 per cent. Extended public service broadcasts make up 31 per cent. Teleshopping takes up slightly less than 10 per cent of the station’s schedule while news fills up 5.5 per cent of airtime.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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