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From the outside, Smash TV looks like a normal house in a quiet residential area. Employing just two full-timers, a sales team and using robots instead of camera persons, Smash still manages to survive despite the competition of the three big three of Maltese TV: the state-owned PBS, and the political party stations NET and Super One.
Judging by the results of the Broadcasting Authority, Smash TV should have gone off air ages ago. In the latest survey it notched just 0.7 per cent of the audience asked about their favourite TV station, and its audience share has never rose above the three per cent mark.
But for Smash TV boss Baldacchino the best survey is “getting a feel” of what the people are talking about in the streets: “our station has survived 12 years and we never had problems in getting enough advertising. There was a time when Misco surveys showed that Smash radio was the second most popular radio. But even then I did not give too much importance to surveys. I simply cannot feel the BA survey out there in the streets.”
Despite the station’s poor ratings, Smash protagonists like televangelist Edward Spiteri, teleshopping presenter now turned talk show host Nidal Bini, and the Christian supremacists from London’s God TV and their zealous American cousins, have all become household names.
Smash TV alone started the teleshopping mania on Maltese TV stations. And it has helped Nationalist backbenchers like Clyde Puli and David Agius and other newcomers from the opposition make their name by hosting unsophisticated talk shows on Smash TV.
Baldacchino insists that Smash TV’s success lies in offering space to all voices in society: it is not just a question of making more money by filling niches, it’s a matter of principle. “We always given space to voices which are not heard elsewhere, that’s the secret of our success.”
True to form, during the 2004 European elections Smash gained notoriety by giving exposure to right-wing extremist Norman Lowell who stole the show from the other independent candidates who were also invited on Smash. Allowing gratuitous exposure, Lowell was given free rein to even call black people as “kaxxa nugget (a box of shoeshine).”
Baldacchino rejects that by giving exposure to Lowell, he was an accomplice in the incitement of racial hatred. “Why are you asking me this? In my opinion Norman Lowell was not inciting racism. I think the racists are those who interpreted Lowell’s views on Smash as racist.” Maybe the logic is not as fine, but still it unmasks a certain defensiveness on Baldacchino’s part, who does not dispute the fact that Lowell has racist ideas but he insists that whenever Lowell spoke on Smash TV he did not say “anything racist” and that he was always “prudent”.
“If he is a racist outside here it’s not my concern,” Baldacchino shrugs. But check this disclaimer: “let’s set the record straight, many people agree with some of the things he says.”
Apart from giving exposure to eccentrics like Lowell and hard-line anticlerical lawyer Emmy Bezzina, Baldacchino also gives space to backbenchers and newcomers from the political parties.
“I believe in backbenchers. These are the politicians who want the best for the country. Backbenchers have a lot to say but nobody gives them the chance. Ministers don’t, they have become monsters. They should not have a monopoly.”
So are the backbenchers themselves who are pleading for space on Smash because they are excluded in their own party’s station? “You should ask this question to them,” the Smash boss suggests.
Hosting Edward Spiteri and transmitting God TV, Smash TV has become the most religiously oriented of the four terrestrial stations, although Baldacchino insists the intention is not that.
“What’s so religious about it? Smash TV is political, it has lots of sports and it has a religious part. Religion is part of Maltese life. We have to cater for it.”
Asked whether he is doing this out of personal devotion, Joe Baldacchino sniggers: “I would just say that there is a viewership trend in favour of these programmes.”
Baldacchino admits he is no fan of God TV but he expresses his admiration for the right-wing evangelicals behind God TV. “They are capable of delivering their message more effectively than the Catholic Church. They know the media better. The popularity of God TV contrasts with the church bureaucracy’s inability to use the media.”
He certainly doesn’t offer his airtime for God TV for free. But without revealing any details he admits there is some Christian charity involved in the deal. “They give us a donation from the money they collect,” Baldacchino claims.
He has also hosted the Maltese version of the US and UK tele-preachers, Edward Spiteri, a “good friend” in Baldacchino’s words: “we are good friends and we respect each other. He fulfils his message by preaching the word of God through Smash TV.”
But friendship and respect apart, the relationship between Smash and Spiteri is also a commercial one. “Yes, he pays for airtime,” says Baldacchino, who does not reveal how much Spiteri is paying to preach God’s word.
Baldacchino does not enter into the merits on whether he believes in faith healing or not. “Don’t ask me about religion,” an uncomfortable Baldacchino said.
It is ironic that some years ago Smash used to transmit late night erotic movies at the time now dedicated to God TV – a sign of Smash’s redemption from its more worldly days? Baldacchino explains he only used to screen B movies when Smash was restricted to those willing to pay for cable TV: “at that time we used to screen movies. We had a contract with a company which used to provide us with some good films and a few with a mildly blue content. It was nothing special, nothing like what you see today on satellite channels. When Smash became terrestrial and free for all we stopped screening these films.”
Turning from religion and sex to politics, Baldacchino finds no difficulty in proclaiming his Labourite beliefs but he seems much more in tune with old labour than with new labour. Asked on his relationship with the present MLP leader Alfred Sant, he responds with a long suspended pause and gives no answer. By providing a platform to Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici before last June’s party general conference he defied the MLP leadership which was doing everything possible to muzzle the former premier.
“Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was paying for expressing himself because the Campaign for National Independence pays for its airtime on Smash. Since Super One did not give him space to express himself he had no choice but to resort to Smash.”
But the link with the anti-EU firebrand goes much deeper than a commercial relationship: “Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici is also my greatest friend. Everybody knows that. I think he is a valid politician and that we should heed his views. If others in the MLP think otherwise it’s their problem not mine.”
He is also squarely behind the former premier’s opposition to the European Union. But he adds an economic twist to arguments to the usual talk on sovereignty. “I still disagree with EU membership. Politicians are now losing the middle-class. We will end up with a society polarised between the haves and the have-nots, with nothing in between.”
He attributes this to the EU’s lack of competitiveness. “Malta is no longer competitive because the whole European Union is not competitive. Countries like China which have low wages or enforce a wage freeze are more competitive. Mintoff realised this in the 1970s. Now even the government is slowly coming to terms with this reality. How can we aspire to increase our wages to European levels and remain competitive?” Baldacchino asks, who contends Malta should have used low wages as a bait to attract investors from the rest of Europe.
He also criticises trade unions for calling for European wages as this would undercut Malta’s competitiveness. On the other hand he blames the government for fuelling demands for wage increases by imposing more and more tariffs, fines and taxes.
“Back in the 1970s the minimum wage was a real wage as it was not consumed in government-induced costs.”
But Baldacchino is clearly out of line with the MLP’s new path on the European Union. One cannot note a similarity between Baldacchino’s own concocted recipe for Malta’s economic regeneration and that of success for his station. “We invest in technology and this reduces our overheads. Ninety-five per cent of our programmes are filmed by robots. Smash employs only two full-timers but we have many contributors and a sales team.”
Baldacchino does not care whether this affects the quality of TV productions aired on Smash: “what is the use of investing a lot of money only to end up losing more money?”
What is important for Baldacchino is that the message comes across: “if you have two people talking… are people interested in cameras zooming in to their ears or are they interested in what they are saying? This is real TV at its best.”
Baldacchino is not wary on confronting the big three in Malta’s television market. He styles himself as the only defender of the common citizen in the recent controversy on digital TV. Smash Communications is refusing to form part of the Multiplus digital terrestrial “Free Plus” package until the Communications Authority grants the free-to-air frequencies to television stations.
At present Smash TV can be received free by the use of a TV antennae or subscribing against payment with Melita Cable. The authority has so far assigned licenses for digital terrestrial transmission networks to Multiplus and Maltacom without distributing the available free-to-air frequencies which would put the Maltese television stations on digital terrestrial for free.
This means that until these frequencies are assigned, Smash TV, TVM, Net TV and Super 1 will only be available on digital terrestrial to Multiplus network subscribers for a yearly fee of Lm12 or a one-off fee of Lm84.
“My position is clear, the four TV stations presently transmitting free of charge should continue to do so after 2010,” the year all European television stations make the ultimate switch to digital transmission.
Baldacchino insists that it is unfair to expect the same people who finance PBS through licences and party stations through their donations will have to pay any amount of money to get their service.
“I should be the least to object to merge my station with a digital terrestrial service provider as I don’t take money from the people. Ironically the three stations taking money from the people have not objected.”
He also explains that Smash was the first channel transmitting on digital and that they were stopped from doing so by the MCA: “We were stopped from providing this service for free. We were also threatened that we will be deprived of our licence in 2010.”
Baldacchino also questions the very existence of political TV stations. He acknowledges that he used to own 50 per cent of Super One when Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was at the helm. He even considers Super One as his creation. But he insists that he never agreed with political TV stations.
“In 1991 my position was that there was no place for party stations. It was the Nationalists who had issued licences to the church and the political parties. Had Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici got elected in 1992, my advice would have been that of withdrawing the licence for party and church stations and open the market for the private sector.”
On the other hand he does not question the need of a public TV station. But he insists that PBS has a duty to be accountable and that the money paid by licences is spent well: “unlike the private sector PBS has the obligation of producing certain programmes even if they are watched by few people. PBS should not be competing with us as it can rely on licence fees. It should use the income it gets from TV licences to finance its programmes. Instead they are paying exorbitant prices to the same people, as if these are the only people in Malta.”
He also recalls the days when PBS had no competition and contained within it the “cream of broadcasting.”
“It used to be an artistic station but today the trend is in favour of real TV.” Citing examples like Italian TV versions of ‘I’m a Celebrity – get me out of here’ and Big Brother, Baldacchino notes that people are interested in exploring the real nature of people on TV.
But Baldacchino does not see any need for conducting these sort of programmes on Smash: “we are already doing real TV. We are showing reality in sports, politics and religion.”