Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia said he is fighting for parliamentary sessions to be aired on the national TV station – a right the highest institution of the country should have and a service the public should have for free.
Currently, parliamentary sessions are broadcast live on its own channel.
“Dr Farrugia said that all members of the public would have access to parliament’s goings-on once the sessions are aired on the national broadcasting station,” he said.
Dr Farrugia said that talks are under way with the Broadcasting Authority to seek a solution. A BA spokesperson confirmed that talks are under way with the Speaker of the House but nothing has been concluded as yet.
His comments come in the light of the fact that standard users of a TV service provider – GO – cannot access the parliamentary TV channel.
When the new parliament building was inaugurated in April, Dr Farrugia had announced that sessions will be aired live on Parliament TV. Dr Farrugia had been working on this project ever since he was appointed Speaker and when it was implemented, he described this initiative as “a dream come true”. He had said that the channel would act as a tool for the public to scrutinise politicians.
But the issue at stake is that customers of the service provider are unable to follow Parliament TV due to the fact that the channel is not made available for standard box users and only can be followed by clients who have an interactive box set-up.
On this point, he said that he has received a string of complaints from users of the service provider, most of whom are pensioners and who cannot afford to upgrade their TV box to interactive. He said that parliament receives a number of people daily who visit the new building and while there, clients of the service provider expressed dismay over the fact that they haven’t access to the channel.
This newsroom also took note of a complaint made by a customer on social online media who said that he was told by the service provider’s customer care unit that since the company’s Digital Terrestrial Service is currently in full capacity, there is no space where to add more channels on the Standard Set-Up Box. For this reason, Parliament TV can only be shown on the Interactive service.
Dr Farrugia said that the highest institution of the country should be granted the right to airtime on TVM but stated that the Public Broadcasting Services hadn’t even approached him to discuss the issue. He said that this was the reason why he is fighting for this right and is in talks with the broadcasting regulator.
“I am not getting involved in private matters,” he said, referring to the issue at stake involving a service provider, “but I am arguing the fact that parliament - being the highest institution - should not be treated like a commercial entity.
“We should not be treated with the legislation that exists which only recognises a political station or commercial company.
“We are above the same law which promulgates the above-mentioned definition. Everyone should have the right to watch parliamentary sessions on TV for free,” he continued.
A Broadcasting Authority spokesperson meanwhile confirmed that talks are under way with the Speaker of the House and the clerk of the House but nothing has been concluded as yet.
Parliament TV ‘craze’
Dr Farrugia went on to say that from the feedback he received, there is a Parliament TV craze ever since the channel was set up, “especially in the light of a ruling I gave that MPs should act in an appropriate manner and that parliament should not be a place where they burst in anger”.
It is up to the authorities to seek alternatives to make Parliament TV available for public – GO
Contacted for a comment, GO said: “GO’s main interest as a leading pay TV operator is to offer content to its customers in a commercially sustainable manner. Currently, Parliament TV is made available through GO Interactive. Should the authorities deem Parliament TV to be in the public interest, it is well within their capacity to take on the responsibility of seeking alternatives to make the channel available to the general public, without charge, on a free-to-air basis.”