The national broadcasting station is fast turning into a ghost station, with further cutbacks, the farming out of programmes and the reduction of services in various sectors, particularly in radio.

Sources who spoke to The Malta Independent on Sunday said that both Radju Malta on 93.7FM and the Parliamentary Debate station 106.6, or Ten Sixty Six as it is popularly known, have been reduced to a veritable juke box, the latter being particularly badly affected.

Since the new station manager took over a few months ago, there have been drastic changes in the way Radju Malta operates. The 12pm news bulletin has been axed, along with the traditional reading of a popular novel at 2pm, which had been going on for over half a century, until the “Dean of Broadcasting”, Charles Arrigo, passed away.

There is only one news bulletin at 7am in the new schedules, which is practically a re-run of the previous day’s news. This contrasts with other, much smaller stations, which broadcast regular news bulletins almost every two hours.

The situation at 106.6 is much worse. Although the station is used for parliamentary debate transmissions, the rest of the airtime is taken up by back to back music and no voice-over announcement, effectively turning it into a relay station. This frequency was supposed to be the alternative national station for younger listeners, but this scheme has apparently fallen by the wayside.

There have also been new developments in the TV sports section, with the company Where’s Everybody? (WE) taking over the filming of a select number of football matches. With PBS’ sports department now run by a string of retirees and part-timers, it is apparent that WE’s tentacles have reached another important section of media broadcasting.

The new Outside Broadcast Unit, recently purchased by WE, was observed in full operation at a recent match between Sliema Wanderers and Rapid Bucharest where quite a few cameramen were filming the match. Sources who spoke to this newspaper said this does not necessarily mean that WE has won the MFA tender to purchase the TV rights for all Premiere League matches, but they have exclusive transmission rights to around 20 “top” matches.

However, the cubicles assigned to the other three TV stations appeared mysteriously deserted during the match, with WE operating from… you guessed it… the PBS cubicle! The cherry on the top is that former PBS employees were filming the match for WE, as they had been engaged on a part-time basis to film the game.

The sad state of the national stations is a matter of serious and urgent concern for all those who have broadcasting at heart, and some questions surely need to be answered by the authorities in this respect.