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Karl Schembri
The national television and radio company is going through its “worst possible death” according to a damning PBS editorial board report released last week.
Confirming the extent of the fallout between the PBS board of directors and the editorial board as revealed by this newspaper two weeks ago, the report slams this year’s commercialised programme schedule which ignores completely its mission of a public broadcaster.
“We undoubtedly note that the worst possible death for a public broadcasting company is that of abandoning or ignoring its mission, and in so doing losing its reason for existing,” the report says. “It seems to us that this is already happening, to a certain extent, through the schedule adopted for TVM, and even more in the mentality prevailing within the company.”
Headed by Fr Joe Borg up to two weeks ago, the board penning the report titled “The ethos of public broadcasting under pressure” did not mince its words in its criticism of the direction of the station.
Headed by Fr Joe Borg up to two weeks ago, the board penning the report titled “The ethos of public broadcasting under pressure” did not mince its words in its criticism of the direction of the station.
Shedding light on the problems between the two boards over the last months, the report makes it absolutely clear that “the board of directors has no right to say that a programme should not be broadcast because it is not editorially of good quality”. Nor can the directors’ board “deem that a programme is good for broadcasting when the editorial board has deemed it unacceptable”.
It notes that not only PBS productions have gone down drastically to make space for commercial programmes and outsourced independent companies, but the station’s own programmes have been totally removed from prime time.
From 735 PBS production hours in 2003, the station produced a mere 205 this year. Only 345 PBS productions were broadcast last year.
“It is essential for PBS not to depend on a few production houses but to widen its net to include other proposals and by being pro-active in proposing programmes and start doing co-productions,” the report states.
In-house productions and co-productions this year amount to a meagre 4 per cent of programmes, excluding news.
Under the section titled “The schedule and tensions between the commercial aspect and public broadcasting aspects”, the editorial board chastises the board of directors for increasing commercial programmes both during and after prime time to 60 per cent.
“Because of commercial demands, there were cases where programmes were ‘stretched’ so that whoever bought air time would have more time for advertising,” the report states, adding that diverse independent producers are reducing advertising rates, affecting badly the PBS revenue.
Most disturbing is the board’s comparison of TVM with Net TV and Super One. It emerges as the station with the biggest number of commercial programmes, least drama, the least one to have in-house productions and the least station to have core public service programmes.
“Above all, it is clear that TVM does not distinguish itself from the other stations in the genre of programmes that is supposed to be distinguishing it,” the report says. “In our opinion the schedule made compromises with the public broadcasting mission that should have never been made.
The editorial board speaks critically of the increasing teleshopping programmes which are in conflict with the station’s mission.
“Unfortunately this year teleshopping has increased and there were even efforts to improve their production,” the report says.
In fact, from 600 minutes per week in 2003, teleshopping minutes went up to 780 last year and 870 this year.
The board also remarks that it was after its “strong insistence” that certain programmes it deemed unacceptable were not included in the schedule.
“Were it not for this insistence, the schedule would be substantially different, although it still does not reflect well the board’s views.”
About current affairs, the board is bleak in its judgement. The only news programme produced by the PBS newsroom, Info, was planned to eventually be moved just before the 8pm news during peak time, but this has been “unfortunately transferred to the inopportune time slot on Sunday at 6.15pm”.
The board also remarks that it is “difficult, not to say impossible” to produce a truly investigative programme” without the required investment.
The newsroom is afflicted by structural handicaps that make it next to impossible to give the news service required of a public broadcaster.
“There is no effective system to film something that might happen at night,” the report says. “Because of this, TVM lost the opportunity to film night incidents of news value that were filmed by its competitors.”
PBS journalists cannot even access email or the internet on their computers as they write their stories. Also, news items written by journalists are being visually edited by different people.
“This means that the visual element which has maximum importance is not even the work of the journalist,” the report says.
The newsroom also lacks beat reporters at the law courts, parliament and to report on EU issues.
The report says only 5.5 per cent of TVM’s 8pm news stories originated from the journalists’ initiative, with none of them being investigative reports.
The report also dwells on the controversial saga to fill the vacant post of news manager, describing it as “the biggest problem” in the last months.
“The drawn out procedures to fill this post were disappointing and frustrating for the editorial board,” the report states.
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