The Broadcasting Authority (BA) has upheld an urgent complaint filed by the Nationalist Party against Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) after a political news item was aired on TVM News during Friday's day of silence.
The complaint was lodged on 29 May, with the BA convening an urgent hearing the same day to examine the case.
The Nationalist Party was represented by lawyer and election candidate Michael Piccinino, while PBS was represented by lawyer Mark Vassallo, editor Charles Dalli, Head of News Owen Galea and CEO Keith Chetcuti.
During the hearing, Vassallo explained that PBS had spent the previous day removing election-related material from its systems in preparation for the legally mandated silence period. He said the contested item was nevertheless broadcast during the 7am news bulletin because of what he described as a technical glitch.
According to PBS, the problem was identified before the Nationalist Party formally submitted its complaint, prompting an immediate internal investigation. Vassallo said that although the relevant reports had been removed, a database update had not been completed correctly, resulting in the unintended transmission of the item.
He noted that PBS suspended its 8am and 9am news bulletins while the issue was being addressed and resumed broadcasting at 10am without the disputed report. Vassallo argued that no remedy was necessary, particularly given the early hour of the broadcast, though he said any corrective measure should be aired at the same time slot.
Piccinino maintained that the broadcast constituted a clear breach of both the law and the Broadcasting Authority's directive regulating political content during the silence period. He argued that a remedy was required, stressing that the existence of a live 7am bulletin demonstrated that there was an audience watching.
The Broadcasting Authority's monitoring team had also detected the broadcast. Joanna Spiteri told the hearing that the authority had alerted TVM officials after noticing the item and confirmed that the subsequent 8am and 9am bulletins were not aired.
In its ruling, the BA noted that PBS had not disputed that material which should not have been broadcast was in fact aired. It also pointed out that this had been confirmed by the authority's chief executive.
The board upheld the complaint and found PBS in breach of Section 6 of the Broadcasting Authority directive. It ordered the broadcaster to read a summary of the decision within the first three items of Friday evening's main news bulletin.
The statement was to note that PBS had aired a political news item during the 7am bulletin in breach of the directive and that the item was not repeated following the authority's intervention.