Revealing The Precarious World Of Media

Michael Hedges June 17, 2013 Follow on Twitter

The media world is delightfully complex. There are broadcasters, public and private. There are publishers, shrill and thoughtful. There’s the web, dynamic and rude. All the parts somehow work together, willingly or not, until the bond is broken.

European public broadcasters faced last week their greatest existential challenge ever as Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras shut down public radio and TV channels. Though several governments have threatened to sell-off all or part of State broadcasting institutions in recent years none have simply thrown the switch. The fury resulting from ERT’s near-instant fade to black, inside Greece and out, certainly caught the government by surprise, forcing a back tracking of sorts but also reinforcing the precariousness of public broadcasting in the digital age.

Not backing down, at least in public, Prime Minister Samaras lashed out at ERT supporters in a speech ahead of a scheduled political gathering. “Those who rushed to defend the ERT will regret it because everything covered up until now will be revealed,” quoted by naftemporiki.gr (June 16). “It was right and fair and should have been done years ago. No one asked us (to close ERT specifically). We decided because of the blatant injustice.”

Closure of ERT was announced last Monday (June 10) and effected Tuesday night. If Prime Minister Samaras thought nobody would notice or care he misread the tea-leaves, placing the Greek government on an even more precarious footing. Within hours the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), European public broadcasting’s trade association, effectively called the government’s bluff and rigged a satellite feed through its own uplink allowing viewers with satellite TV access to see news reports broadcast by a cadre of ex-ERT employees in a remote studio by Thursday. By Friday (June 15) Mr. Samaras backed off slightly to allow that a small staff might be allowed to broadcast something until the successor to ERT could be organized.

The EBU and its member broadcasters quickly rallied, messages flying among themselves and on to Brussels. Officials representing more than fifty public broadcasting organizations endorsed a letter to Prime Minister Samaras calling for the ERT closure to be reversed and the government’s action “undemocratic and unprofessional.” Last Friday EBU president Jean-Paul Philippot flew to Athens for meetings with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras as well as the gather ERT supporters and ex-employees.

“We are here because it's never happened in Europe,” he said outside ERT headquarters. “Since the EBU was created no government has cut the signal of a broadcaster.”

Governments have, however, attempted drastic measures. When Portugal’s government made noises last year about privatizing public television channels as part of public sector restructuring demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre reminded Prime Minister Pedro Manuel Passos Coelho in an open letter of the myriad of competition issues that would be raised as well as the European Commission’s Amsterdam Protocol, which requires EU Members States to provide for a public television broadcaster. “You cannot treat a public broadcaster like an electricity company or a staff canteen,” said the letter. By January this year privatizing RTP had been officially “postponed” to prevent “destabilizing” Portugal’s media market.

The Hungarian government under Viktor Orban has been vilified by all quarters over the years for politicizing just about everything from the courts to the media sector, including public broadcaster MTV. EBU president at the time Arne Wessberg formed a special task force in 2006 attempting to repair the damage. It failed, Mr. Orban enjoying considerable political support inside Hungary, and the EBU reassessed its position on errant members. Better to have them inside “the big tent” than outside. There was hardly a whisper when the Danish government semi-privatized last year a radio channel of public broadcaster DR.

ERT’s operation has been dicey over the years, to be generous. But Greek authorities have only been modestly successful – or interested – in forcing private broadcasters to have real licenses. “There are questions about ERT and there are a number of problems,” said Swedish public television CEO Eva Hamilton in a letter accompanying the EBU petition, quoted by Dagens Media (June 13).  Estonian public broadcasting chairman Margus Allikmaa noted the allegations that ERT has been a government mouthpiece “but tends to conform to the democratic public broadcasting model, with a particularly good regional and cultural news presence.”

Whether necessary or not, “reform” of a public broadcasting institution virtually announces the lack of political independence served up as the raison d'être. Politicians love their public broadcasters, and media generally, when like-minded and hate them otherwise. Most public broadcasting directors general are political appointees who often, but not always, bring with them biases, interests, nieces and nephews. When politicians serve up another session on public broadcasting reform it’s a comprised of politicians.

Delivering the final opinion on ERT at the end of Tuesday, government spokesperson Simos Kedikoglou described the broadcaster as a “characteristic case of lack of transparency and waste.” Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras derided ERT as “hopelessly corrupt,” failing to notice that directors are all political appointees, and complained of its low ratings. Critics of the decision, he said, are shedding “crocodile tears.”

Members of the ruling Greek coalition will meet, hurriedly, to repair the damage. It may not work. The IMF will still demand, from the safety of their offices, public sector job cuts in Greece before sending more bailout money.

The Greek media sector, however, has been rocked to its foundation, of limited brace to begin with. Privately owned publishers and broadcasters benefit little from ERT’s closure or, if it happens, restructuring. The media sector shrinks, ratings being but a transient measure, and that cannot be replaced by the internet.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Public Broadcasting - Arguments, Battles and Changes

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Media in South East Europe

The countries of South East Europe are a mix of EU Members - Greece, Romania and Bulgaria - and two on the fringes - Macedonia and Moldova. The region has media billionaires and big broadcasters vying for ad share and market position. Challenges, not just on the fringes, remain daunting. Includes Resources. 56 pages PDF (May 2010)

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