What started out as an innocuous follow-up on whether a new current affairs programme submitted by this media house (Standard Publications Ltd) had been approved by PBS following a call for new programmes, opened a can of worms.
A series of events over the course of summer revealed that the national television station has no control over its current affairs programmes and that it has been vetoed by officers at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and others.
Back in July, this media house was unofficially told that the programme Wara l-Aħbar submitted by The Malta Independent will not make it to the October schedule because, we were informed, TVM will no longer broadcast programmes produced by newsrooms other than that of PBS.
But as the new PBS season's launch date approached, this media house learnt that two programmes produced respectively by The Times of Malta and MediaToday had been reconfirmed on the programme roster, while the other two current affairs programmes that got the chop were those produced by independent university lecturer Andrew Azzopardi and another produced in-house by TVM and presented by PBS journalists.
An irate Dr Azzopardi had even took to his Facebook page to address complaints from followers of his programme, saying that he will at least retain his Saturday radio show on PBS.
In the last Broadcasting Authority survey, Reporter, produced by MaltaToday attracted a viewership of 3,000,TimesTalk, produced by The Times of Malta attracted 17,000 viewers on Tuesdays, while Dr Azzopardi's programme generated an audience of 13,000 on Wednesdays. The programme produced a year earlier by then TVM's Norman Vella attracted over 40,000 viewers during the same time-slot.
Following the news that The Malta Independent's proposed current affairs programme will not form part of the TVM's schedule, this media house attempted to establish what had happened.
Several officials at PBS confessed, strictly off the record, that the original plan was not to have competing newsrooms producing current affairs programmes for TVM. But following the initial presentation of the schedule to the Cabinet, things suddenly changed and both Reporter and TimesTalk found themselves back in the schedule, with no opportunity having been given to the other independent newsroom at The Malta Independent.
This media house found it strange that it wasn't given the opportunity to produce a current affairs programme on the national station when it possesses a total of seven journalists who trained and worked in the broadcasting media for many years and produced and presented their own prime time programmes, mainly on TVM.
While digging further to establish why this newsroom was left out of TVM's current affairs programme roster and why others had been included, we have been informed, always unofficially never by correspondence, that the final go ahead for TVM's programming schedule rests with people in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).
This information speaks volumes when one considers how this media house has been constantly ignored by officers at the OPM both on editorial and commercial matters.
The Malta Independent newsroom has been left out of important governmental visits, including the Prime Minister's visits to China, twice. Questions sent to the OPM are constantly and repeatedly ignored, including Freedom of Information requests.
On the commercial side, most, if not all, media campaigns booked by the OPM, and obviously paid for from public funds, usually leave The Malta Independent by the wayside. Private companies engaged to manage these public campaigns find themselves at a loss for words, or are downright embarrassed, when confronted on the issue.