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Your front page story headed “Confidential report shows Bondiplus and Xarabank net Lm294,000 in nine months” 13 November, 2005 is not true.
This is the truth about the 2004-5 financial track record of our two programmes on PBS.
Facts revealed in your story negate your own heading. The latter gives the impression that PBS forks out Lm294,000 for Xarabank and Bondiplus and gets nothing in return. In fact, your own report cites figures that PBS not only recoups these costs from adverts and sponsorships but from these sources is anticipated to make a net profit of Lm53,000.
Furthermore, according to your own figures over 20 per cent of all the advertising revenue placed on PBS is placed on Bondiplus and Xarabank. This is hardly the financially perverse picture you tried to give your readers.
Secondly, over the last few years we have asked PBS to sell us the airtime to air Bondiplus and Xarabank on condition that we recover the expenses from advertising and sponsorship revenue. In effect this would mean that PBS gets these programmes for free. PBS has always refused and the reason is simple. Contrary to what you claim, Bondiplus and Xarabank always made a profit for PBS.
Thirdly, you play on the word ‘net’ which gives the false impression that Where’s Everybody makes Lm294,000 in profits. In effect, this amount has to cover all the expenses that go into the production of Bondiplus and Xarabank including payments back to PBS of Lm35,000 primarily for use of its studio. Other costs include full time and part time wages, filming, editing, studio, lights, sound, administration, insurance, transport, communications, office space, research and a hundred other things.
Fourthly, you claim that, apart from Lm294,000, Bondiplus and Xarabank cost PBS Lm89,000 in ‘fixed costs’. As the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report, on which you base your allegations, makes clear the “fixed costs” in the table you partially reproduced are in fact a recoverable amount that PBS needs to make from each programme in order to break even across all programmes. They do not relate to the actual fixed costs incurred by particular programmes which in the case of Xarabank and Bondiplus are minimal.
The conclusion is obvious. Not a single penny of taxpayers money is spent on Bondiplus and Xarabank. To the contrary, these two programmes subsidise other programmes on PBS. That is why PBS insists on not selling us the airtime.
Peppi Azzopardi
Lou Bondi
PJ Vassallo
Where’s Everybody
G’Mangia
Editor’s note: The PriceWaterHouse report speaks for itself. There are no allegations and no perversions just simple facts. The assertion in this letter that Bondiplus and Xarabank are not recipients of one single ‘penny’ of taxpayers money is erroneous. Consequently MaltaToday’s report is in the public interest and in accordance with ‘true investigative journalism on everything’. Lm294K were the fees owed to Where’s Everybody for these two programmes. The origin of these funds are from taxpayer’s money.
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