Zapping from one local radio station to another is so easily taken for granted today, but it wasn’t always that way. There was a time, not so long ago, when the ‘one nation, one station’ concept was more than a simple marketing slogan used by a particular broadcaster – it was a reality. And a reality in an era when cable and satellite television were practically unheard of, let alone the internet.

The Broadcasting Act of 1991 changed all that and today we enjoy a choice of a handsome number of local radio and television stations together with an even bigger choice of foreign stations. This was undoubtedly a major milestone, not only in broadcasting terms but also in terms of the nation’s democratic development. This piece of legislation, piloted by Minister Michael Frendo and based on the 1990 White Paper entitled Xandir – Impenn għall-Pluralizmu and the European Council Convention on Television without Frontiers, was hailed by many as a monument of the Nationalist Party in Government, even if at the time it was opposed by the then Opposition Party.

Nonetheless, the Malta Labour Party set up its own Super One radio station immediately after the legislation was passed through parliament and later a television station, before any other political party had even considered setting one up. The party media was then used effectively enough to contribute to the downfall of the Nationalist Government in the 1996 general election. The disastrous result pressured the Nationalist Party leadership to also establish its own television station, a venture that it had strongly resisted up until then. And so Net TV was born in 1997.

Radio 101 celebrates its 20th anniversary on 28 September. To the Nationalist Party, the setting up of its own station meant more than the creation of an effective communications tool. It was the vindication of important and hard-fought-for principles: liberty and freedom of expression. I still recall the inauguration night in San Gwann, listening attentively to Eddie Fenech Adami’s recollections on how his party had had to resort to clandestine transmissions from Sicily when it was in Opposition because the state-owned broadcaster, the only licensed broadcaster, was in effect a state apparatus that was systematically used and abused to the advantage of the ruling regime to control public opinion. To get the message across, the Nationalist Opposition was constantly at a disadvantage, even if it could always rely on its leader’s powerful oration skills during mass meetings attracting such huge audiences that none of today’s TV and radio programmes could boast of.

This was Fenech Adami’s first legislature in government and he was set on a mission to democratise what was a democracy only by name. It was the end of authoritarianism and centralised power, and the introduction of local government and a number of independent regulatory authorities was soon to follow. A liberalisation process was underway in various sectors of the economy and his unwavering belief in the ability of the individual was a constant underlying theme of his reforms.

He enacted all the reforms fully aware of the fact that, while in power, he would be sowing the seeds of future defeats, both on the political and the social fronts. However, one wonders if it ever crossed his mind that the principle of individual liberty and choice would not be so easily confinable to the realms of radio channels and supermarket shelves nicely packed with packets of pasta and chocolate bars of all sorts. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that most probably – because Eddie believed that things happened for a purpose and nothing happened purely by chance – it would have been rather optimistic of him to assume that any social disruption would automatically be followed by the restoration of social order.

Without attempting any kind of value judgement on the kind of change in question, the media is certainly in one way or another contributing to profound societal change and therefore cannot be ignored. Oliver Friggieri, in his recently published autobiography interestingly argues that the advent of cable television in the late 1980s brought about “more radical changes than both Napoleon’s invasion and British Colonial rule”.

And if that is anywhere near the truth, it should definitely place a certain sense of responsibility on whoever operates in – or controls – the media.

Clyde Puli is Parliamentary Secretary for Youth and Sport