Politicians Plan For Public Broadcasting: Ready, Fire, Aim

Michael Hedges September 23, 2013 Follow on Twitter

Austerity economics and the political games related are tied to the health and well-being of public broadcasting. Politicians prefer their media compliant and will challenge all who complain. Still, public broadcasters know their strength, which confounds those forming the circular firing squad.

Politicians in Spain continue to take shots at each other over operations and financing of public broadcaster RTVE. One side accused the other of having no plan for RTVE other than “starvation” and threatened an appeal to the European Parliament. Go ahead, said a spokesperson for the other side, take it to the United Nations if you want. Spain has other problems none of which can be solved by or on the media.

Spain’s political parties set up a special parliamentary committee to oversee RTVE in early 2012, financing being one of several intertwined issues. At the committee’s first meeting center-right People’s Party (Partido Popular – PP) members railed at “bias” in news coverage, “serving the opposition” and “distorting” reality following the November 2011 elections that resulted in PP leader Mariano Rajoy replacing Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as prime minister.  PP politicians promptly cut €200 million from the RTVE budget.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in June that a French tax on telecoms to support public broadcasting “does not break the telecommunications rules in the European Union.” And so the ECJ formally withdrew action against Spain and Hungary for similar tax legislation. The Zapatero government adopted the tax on telecoms and commercial broadcasters to replace advertising on RTVE television channels.

“Neither the government nor the PP have a plan for public broadcasting or its employees,” said PSOE Senator and oversight committee member Juan Luis Gordo at a press conference, quoted by El Pais (September 19). “It does have a plan but it’s personal, a plan defending the interests of the PP using public sources. The only plan they have is starvation: TVE dies and dies alone.”

“When the PP came to government, TVE (RTVE television channels) was leading with a 14.5% share,” he continued. “In August it reached an historic minimum with an audience share of 10.2%. The falling audience share was “no coincidence.”

Sr. Gordo wasn’t finished. “Today the (RTVE) board of directors is merely a symbolic body…which does nothing, does not control anything and puts no ideas on the table.” The PSOE would “raise complaints” with the European Parliament.

Politics, of course, goes where it goes. People’s Party (PP) member of the RTVE oversight committee Ramón Moreno called the comments of Sr. Gordo “nonsense” and “grotesque,” in a statement quoted by El Mundo (September 20). “It’s an agonizing way to get attention because the PSOE is unable…to offer any initiative with positive impact on a public more concerned with the current economic crisis that his party left in our country.”

They “have nothing left but to ask for a UN resolution,” Sr. Moreno concluded.

Politicians have long battled with or about public broadcasting, and easy target because, unless you work there, nobody knows where it comes from. The Greek government shut down its public broadcaster ERT this past summer ostensibly to satisfy demands for cuts to public sector employment. Local media watchers suggest a more sinister plot to wrestle away sports rights for well-connected private broadcasters. Public protests and an international lobbying campaign following the closure nearly brought down the Greek government, which has only offered a meek substitute to ERT.

Ireland’s public broadcaster RTE is “leaner” after an austerity program made more austere by dismal economics. “We have been through five turbulent years,” said director general Noel Curran on the release of a new five-year plan, quoted by the Irish Independent (September 17). “Now we need to look forward.”  Without a revenue boost from the Irish government, he said, news and current affairs programming could be cut. Commercial broadcasters in Ireland are lobbying to wean RTE from advertising revenue. Ireland’s Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte favors strengthening license fee collections.

British politicians of all stripe are continuing their war against all media. Newspaper publishers are due to be handed a distasteful self-regulation scheme with parliamentary teeth popular in the wake of phone hacking and other rude awakenings. Public broadcaster BBC has become a non-partisan political target, accused of all sorts of misdeeds including paying executives too much.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Public Broadcasting - Arguments, Battles and Changes

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Media in Spain and Portugal

The Iberian Peninsula is home to media with vast international reach. Yet, at home the economic crisis has taken its toll. The ftm Knowledge file profiles Spanish and Portuguese public and private media as it struggles to cope. Includes Resources 61 pages PDF (March 2012)

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