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Karl Schembri
Almost two years since Investments Minister Austin Gatt’s restructuring, Francis Zammit Dimech has finally decided to tackle the national television and radio station’s public broadcasting content.
The minister has all but abandoned the station to the hands of Austin Gatt, the other minister in charge of restructuring, with public broadcasting undergoing one of its darkest moments.
Zammit Dimech seems to be taking the law and his portfolio a bit more seriously now in talking about the station’s public service obligations.
Last Thursday he gloriously announced “a new step in the implementation of government’s broadcasting policy”, though what he said is merely a rewording of what the broadcasting policy launched two years ago already stipulates.
He basically realised he is responsible for that Lm0.5 million passed on to PBS for what is called the “extended public service obligation” – that is for programmes of current affairs, culture, sports, drama and education that would merit government funding in line with the station’s public service mission.
Now that is late, considering that since Gatt has been running the show there have been three chairmen’s heads chopped off together with two-thirds of the workers and what the station’s editorial board called the total commercialisation of the company.
Also, at least three different programme seasons have passed since Zammit Dimech became responsible for the station’s public service programmes without one minute devoted by the minister to the quality of junk TV broadcast everyday and financed by taxes. He simply signed the pay cheque, Lm0.5 million.
“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 editorial board’s report for last year says. “It seems to us that this is already happening through the schedule adopted for TVM, and even more in the mentality prevailing within the company.”
Now, the same man who penned that sentence is on Zammit Dimech’s side after having resigned from the PBS editorial board’s chairmanship, declaredly after having “made peace with the Archbishop”.
Fr Joe Borg is Zammit Dimech’s new audiovisual advisor. In his new role, Fr Borg is more or less responsible for the same kind of content as he was before, but perhaps with less clout.
Not that he had much clout before. When the editorial board asked for more funds from the government for PBS, Austin Gatt told them to stop grumbling and work with what was available.
“It’s like going home and telling my wife ‘this is my salary’ and she insists she needs more money to cook different food,” Gatt had said in an interview with MaltaToday.
Even with the previous chairman, Andrew Agius Muscat, Fr Borg was almost powerless as evidenced by his explosive editorial board report slamming the board of directors for their lack of direction and exclusive obsession with the bottom line, admitting that only a couple of his ideas were picked up in the formulation of this season’s TV schedule.
Now he will decide how many hours of airtime need to be dedicated to programmes falling under the extended public service obligation category, after public consultation. He will determine how many, say, drama, cultural and children’s programmes need to be broadcast, and allocate funds accordingly from the measly Lm0.5 million set aside by the government.
He should also be able to check the PBS accounts to make sure that all those funds are going to public service programmes, that the programmes receiving those funds actually need them, and perhaps also the quality of the content. But he will have no say on which programmes are actually chosen or commissioned, and news is not even within his remit.
Meanwhile PBS is doomed to remain commercially driven even though the advertising department remains in shambles, while Gatt’s ministry functionaries dictate the decisions that matter from Valletta – case in point is the appointment of a news manager which also saw the direct intervention of the prime minister who shot down Gatt’s choice.
Also, the person eventually appointed news manager is now simply gagged by the system: Sylvana Cristina cannot function as a news manager because she is still occupying the post of programmes manager as the vacancy remains unfilled. Gatt’s ministry would have her fulfilling both jobs – an impossible task that only betrays their failure to run a public service broadcaster, with the present situation being that she can focus on none. Judging by the tortuous saga to find a news manager, this situation is bound to remain the same for months, probably years.
Whatever Fr Borg and Zammit Dimech deem necessary to be broadcast, they will be met by a perpetually outgoing programmes manager with serious newsroom issues on her mind. And although Cristina has always worked closely with Fr Borg, the final say on programmes will remain with the board of directors with a direct brief from Gatt to apply the imperatives of the balance sheet.
It is also telling that the new Chief Executive Officer, Albert Debono, is the company’s former financial controller. Today he defends the station’s massive cutback on sports programmes and on ignoring the world cup matches because “they are not financially viable”.
Fr Borg may get Zammit Dimech to at least speak about PBS, but quality will remain way beyond his grasp. This is the same person who takes pride in the cheesy Eurovision limelight and makes it a point to include the kitsch song festival in the nation’s cultural calendar.
So don’t get shocked if you see is-Sur Gawdenz on TVM.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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