On the face of it, Fr Joe Borg was all praise for PBS’ ‘Augustinian (meaning Austin Gatt’s) revolution when he spoke at MaltaToday’s business breakfast last week. However, when one analyses Fr Borg’s content, one is still not so sure whether he was praising Dr Gatt’s reform of PBS or damning it with faint praise.
The speaker praised Dr Gatt for having brought in a national policy on broadcasting but then complained that the balance at PBS has been lost as everything there is now done for money.
Although PBS is a national station, 60 per cent of its prime and seconda serata time are commercial programmes. The station should not have the amount of teleshopping programmes it has and, what with outsourcing and the rest, PBS is only directly producing 200 minutes of programmes a week.
Fr Borg, while praising the setting up of an independent editorial board, which he used to head, complained that it is still without a chairman. And the way it is accountable to two ministers must be reviewed, he added.
Beginning his speech, Fr Borg said that with 12 national radio stations, and 52 community radio stations, half of them on a permanent basis, together with five television stations, it seems that there is a surfeit of broadcasting.
However, more are on the way: there are nine expressions of interest for a television station, two applications, (one by a priest) and 29 applications for radio stations.
The Maltese tend to have far more televisions than they have washing machines but then only 60 per cent of them watch the news on TV.
The main challenge facing broadcasting in Malta, the speaker added, is the preponderance of the country’s institutions on broadcasting. Not only does the State have its own national TV station, but the two political parties as well. The GWU is planning to set up a network of community radio stations and UHM is also interested. Three-quarters of Malta’s television stations are linked to institutions.
As for the Church, it has two radio stations – RTK and Radju Marija. However, the two offer widely-different theologies and the official church never expected Radju Marija to be so popular.
Among broadcasting’s future challenges, Fr Borg mentioned the upcoming digitalisation of broadcasting, podcasts, and so on. Digitalisation could also however create a digital divide. MCA must study the whole broadcasting sector and see whether anyone, such as Melita Cable, is in a dominant position, in which case it ought to be compelled to carry its competitors on its infrastructure.
In the 15th year of radio pluralism, one must look again at the whole sector and see whether giving political parties a permit to operate television station was the right thing to do. And the Broadcasting Authority must be widened to reflect civil society as well, just as happened with MCESD.
Reacting to Fr Borg, Anna Mallia said the authority is toothless as has been proved with its prohibition of any advertising during the World Cup games being promptly ignored.
Alternattiva’s Harry Vassallo was critical of Fr Borg saying these have been 15 years of dualism, not pluralism and we have less pluralism than they have in China.
Lou Bondi said negotiating with PBS is just like a Fellini film. He agreed that giving stations to political parties was a mistake but pointed out that with digital TV there will be three main platforms: Maltacom, Melita and Multiplus. Where will the advertising go?