The board of directors of the state-funded Public Broadcasting Services Ltd yesterday accused the editorial board chairman John Camilleri of making baseless accusations that were harming the company, the employees and producers. It said that Mr Camilleri had always been invited to attend company board meetings, but had failed to do so since April.

The board issued its statement in reply to one from Mr Camilleri on 22 August. It said that the company, the management and the board of directors did not report to the editorial board. The company had accepted many of the editorial board’s suggestions but, as in the past, it had also chosen to make changes, as was its right.

It was not true that there were programmes on which the editorial board had not received any proposal and the board of directors had, as far as possible, gone by the editorial board’s recommendations, but it pointed out that it was under no obligation to accept their

recommendations.

In its statement, the directors said they would like the newsroom to put up current affairs programmes, and was enhancing the newsroom’s resources to this end. But the editorial board seemed not to want any programme schedule. Mr Camilleri’s comments were prejudicing the talks the company was having to achieve schedule objectives.

The directors said that while the editorial board had every right to communicate with the media as it wished, the directors were being very cautious in their communications because of the ongoing talks.

The result of the work of the directors, the management and the employees showed that the decisions being taken were bearing fruit. PBS’ results were improving every year and there had been improvements in both content as well as in financial results.

This strategy would allow PBS to improve the content of children’s and sports programmes, and to have more drama and more educational content, without placing an additional burden on public funds, the directors said.