A clash between the management and editorial board at the state-funded Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) came out into the open yesterday when it became known that the chairman of the board of directors had tried to countermand a decision made by the editorial board.

Chairman Joe Fenech Conti had written to programme producers asking them to ignore the short-listing of programmes for the winter schedule, as issued by the editorial board. This, editorial board chairman John Camilleri said yesterday, went beyond Mr Fenech Conti’s powers and was “censurable”.

Mr Camilleri was referring to the incident that took place earlier this month, following an email he had sent to the producers announcing that their programmes had been shortlisted.

Shortly afterwards, how-ever, Mr Fenech Conti had emailed the producers, telling them to ignore Mr Camilleri’s message and saying that the short listing had not taken place.

In a press statement issued by Mr Camilleri and editorial board members Dominic Fenech and Mary-Anne Lauri, Mr Camilleri said that his actions taken on behalf of the editorial board of PBS were aimed “at safeguarding the credibility, transparency and reputation of PBS and to ensure the pluralism of broadcasting”.

Mr Camilleri said he decided to inform the shortlisted producers of the editorial board’s decision on 19 April, following “the CEO’s failure to do so without delay, in accordance with the unanimous decision of Monday, 16 April of the editorial board, of which the CEO is also a member.”

He pointed out that the editorial board had agreed to show the shortlisted programmes to the chairman of the board of directors. However, said Mr Camilleri, the list was to be shown to Mr Fenech Conti only for his information and not, “as the CEO maintained, to obtain clearance.”

When the CEO refused to follow the editorial board’s instructions, despite repeated reminders, Mr Camilleri decided, “in consultation with the other voting members, to issue the letters (emails to producers) under his name.”

Mr Camilleri said there were clear signs of stalling, “especially when it was proposed to hold everything until after the board of directors’ meeting scheduled for Monday – a full week after the editorial board had met.”

Furthermore, he said, had the editorial board waited for the meeting to take place, it would have taken place at least two weeks later as “that meeting was at the last moment postponed to Friday, 27 April.”

The board of directors continued to postpone the meeting “without any consideration of the fact that, according to the timeline published in the Programme Statement of Intent (PSI), the shortlist was to be published right away to give producers time to prepare a demo DVD or tape by 7 May.”

Mr Camilleri said that when he spoke to Mr Fenech Conti on Wednesday, 18 April, Mr Fenech Conti had replied that he wished the board of directors to be briefed “so that he could give the editorial board his full support”.

Mr Camilleri said he had made it clear that the editorial board was acting within its powers to decide “at this stage of preliminary shortlisting”, adding that Mr Fenech Conti did not “at that point, try to assert the power of the board of directors vis-à-vis the editorial board.”

Furthermore, he said, the members of the editorial board failed to understand why the editorial board should have needed the support of the board of directors.

Mr Camilleri said that when he “communicated the shortlist to the producers, he was acting within the powers of the editorial board and in the spirit of the National Broadcasting Policy”.

He explained that, according to the policy, the editorial board “judges and grades” proposals and only then forwards its shortlist to the board of directors.

However, added Mr Camilleri, the editorial board has not yet reached that stage.

This year, the editorial board asked for and obtained permission from the Investment, Industry and IT Ministry and Tourism and Culture Ministry, to follow a different procedure, he explained.

“According to the new approved procedure, the shortlisting was divided into two phases: in the first phase producers were given two weeks from the date of the PSI’s publication to make their submissions,” without a demo tape or DVD at this stage, said Mr Camilleri.

Those who were shortlisted in the first phase would then be required to submit the demo within three weeks of being notified, he added.

“It is clear that the first phase required no grading, but a simple decision to shortlist or not to shortlist,” stressed Mr Camilleri.

However, he said, it was only after the second phase that the grading of those shortlisted would be made, “so that the board of directors may then be in a position to deal with them according to commercial and financial criteria.”

Furthermore, the policy made it “amply clear” that the editorial board was not subject to the board of directors in matters of editorial content and judgement, Mr Camilleri explained. The board of directors may only “digress from the choices of the editorial board on financial grounds, and then only after having done its utmost to respect them.”

As a result, said Mr Camilleri, the editorial board stood by its original position and “will not assume any responsibility for decisions taken by any authority merely on the strength of its control over the management of PBS.”

In a statement issued last night, the board of directors of PBS said it regrets having to reply to the editorial board that has continued to conduct a public campaign seemingly intended to embarrass the company and its stations, in the interests of which the members of the editorial board are supposed to be working.

PBS is a limited liability company to which all obligations at law apply. That includes the responsibilities of the members of the board of directors to safeguard the commercial interest of the company, the statement said.

The specific public service context of the station justifies the existence of an internal watchdog that advises the board of directors on matters of content and acts autonomously from it on matters relating to news.

However, in exercising executive authority, it did not have in the process to select programmes for the October 2007 schedule. The editorial board had stopped being an internal watchdog and had taken upon itself to decide what programmes are shown on PBS and what programmes are not. It also took the unauthorised action of informing bidders of its decision, passing it as the company’s decision on the matter – when it manifestly was not, the statement continued.

Nothing in the spirit or the letter of the National Broadcasting Policy, or in any other instructions received at PBS from the shareholder, could justify the editorial board’s action in this matter.

“The concluding remarks made today by the editorial board ironically illustrate the point this Board of Directors wishes to make:

‘The NBP makes it amply clear… that the board of directors may only digress from the choices of the editorial board on financial grounds, and then only after having done its utmost to respect them’,” said the statement.

“We agree with this interpretation of the Broadcasting Policy. What is important at this stage is to realise that once the editorial board felt it was free to altogether disqualify applicants in the scheduling process, the board of directors was being prevented from exercising its authority to over-rule the editorial board’s decisions on financial grounds.

“Irrespective of what the editorial board believes it is or is not competent of doing, the burden of personal responsibility for safeguarding the financial and commercial interests of PBS remains on the members of the board of directors and we do not have the option to abdicate from this responsibility by referring to the existence of the editorial board.

“It is for this reason that we have informed all bidders in the scheduling process that as far as PBS Ltd is concerned the process to select programmes for the October 2007 schedule remains open and all bids are still under consideration.

The statement concluded by saying that the board of directors wished to express its regret that the editorial board seems to confuse its inherent role of being the public service conscience of the organisation with the notion that it is its responsibility to damage PBS’s commercial position in the competitive scenario in which it must survive.