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Karl Schembri
PBS is planning to hive off its own sales and advertising department by contracting out services to private agencies, in a move that is feared to weaken further the national public broadcaster while pitting it in a potential minefield of conflicts of interest.
A spokesman for Investments Minister Austin Gatt confirmed that the ministry had received “submissions from PBS regarding their proposals for a revised sales strategy” that was currently being assessed.
Sources say the proposals include that of issuing a call for tenders so that the stations could contract out its sales and advertising services in the coming months.
PBS chief executive Albert Debono did not deny the information but cited “sensitive commercial issues” for keeping the plans under wraps.
“It could be an option that may be on the cards and cannot be discussed further due to sensitive commercial issues,” Debono said, adding that “such a decision, when and if taken, is a commercial one and its grounds are also commercial”.
Gatt’s spokesman said the PBS proposals “do not include the dismantling of the existing sales unit” – hinting that the office may be retained to facilitate coordination of the station’s sales operations.
The PBS chief executive said the move “would not necessarily entail the dismantling of our own sales function, though of course inbuilt in such a move would be the orientation of our sales operation”.
“As much as unlikely to discuss with me the sales methods of the organisation that employs you, I am not at liberty to provide any further details,” Debono said.
Incidentally, last Monday the acting chairman of the PBS editorial board, Dominic Fenech, warned during the launch of the new winter schedule that the station needed boost its advertising and marketing department so that it could retain control over its programmes without having the need to sell airtime.
Contacted yesterday, Fenech said: “The most important thing for the editorial board is that PBS gets enough advertising revenue so that it does not have to sell its air time, as it is doing now. It has to recover full control of its broadcasting, and especially provide more news and current affairs programmes.”
According to a confidential PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit report revealed by MaltaToday last November, production houses producing programmes for PBS were capitalising on the PBS policy to outsource its programmes.
At the same time, the station is suffering from advertising competition with the same companies producing its programmes, the report states.
“The local advertising market is in a state of ‘disarray’ given the intense competition between the three main local TV stations as well as, and possibly more importantly between the stations and their own producers/suppliers who often compete head-to-head with their ‘principal station’ in selling airtime. … Selling of airtime to producers has brought about a situation whereby there is now a direct competition for selling advertising between PBS, advertising agents and production houses. This is only creating confusion in the market place and aggravating matters further.”
PBS lacks a “formalised marketing plan that sets out clearly the strategic vision for PBS over the years,” the report adds. “As a consequence many initiatives are being undertaken in an uncoordinated and haphazard manner.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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