The chairman of the the Radio and TV Broadcasting Council, Peter Juras, has warned Radio Free Europe (RFE) that it has failed to adhere to the conditions of its license. The council surveyed an RFE news program, which it accused of “negativity” in its treatment of the Slovak state. Juras stated that unless steps were taken to address what the Broadcasting Council regarded as RFE’s shortcomings, the station could lose its licence.
1. Summary—editorial prepared by the Summary of World Broadcasts group of the BBC
The US- funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe (RFE)
has been given a stern warning by Slovakia’s regulatory body, the Radio
and TV Broadcasting Council, which has threatened to revoke the station’s
licence to be rebroadcast in the country if it does not alter its programme
content and style.
This latest warning follows a decision by the broadcasting
council last August that RFE’s licence would be renewed, but only until
the end of 1996. This contrasted with the council’s decision on the BBC,
whose licence was renewed for a further six years.
The sensitive question of the degree of media freedom
in the country has thus once again raised its head.
It is ironic that RFE, entirely a product of the
Cold War and one whose continued existence remains under threat in a world
lacking its former bipolar division, should in 1996 be described as “an
ideological tool in the hands of interest groups in the USA against an
independent Slovakia.” The chairman of the broadcasting council went
on to criticize RFE’s Slovak service for basing its programmes on “negativism”
and “envy,” and said its listeners “must regularly succumb to pessimism
and hopelessness.”
Quite apart from the fact that that is surely a
matter for the listeners to decide, the language used is itself worrying,
conjuring up as it does an image of tense ideological stand- off and a
government striving to protect its people from the poison of enemy propaganda.
Equally reminiscent of past methods was the way
the state news agency TASR and the pro-government Association of Slovak
Journalists (ZSN) reacted to the council’s statement by putting out one
of their own expressing wholehearted agreement. TASR confidently labelled
RFE’s programming “unbalanced and non- objective” and said it was “obviously
performing the propaganda purposes of certain political circles not leaning
favourably towards the current government and Slovakia.” The ZSN
accused RFE of spreading “one- sided, unobjective information and violating
the principles of journalistic ethics.”
A lone voice in support of RFE was Slovakia’s other
main media union, the pro- opposition Syndicate of Slovak Journalists.
It came to the conclusion that RFE was not the real issue and that the
broadcasting council’s warning was meant as a shot across the bows of the
independent opposition media. The independent journalists’ reasoning was
that given that the Slovak authorities had no hope of completely silencing
RFE’s Slovak service, which is funded from the USA, based in Prague and
has access to Czech transmitters, the move was designed to warn Slovakia’s
independent radio and TV stations that their licences were in danger if
their programming failed to meet certain criteria. These stations are well
aware that they will not be in RFE’ s fortunate position of having another
country from which to broadcast.
It must be noted to TASR’s credit that it did publish
the opposition journalists’ statement expressing anxiety about the treatment
of RFE.
For Slovak journalists, various forms of direct
and indirect pressure are part of everyday life. It proved difficult for
many who were not favourably disposed towards the government of Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar to remain in their posts in state radio and television
after these were placed firmly under the control of Meciar’s supporters.
Several have found refuge in the many new private stations which have sprung
up, but they face financial difficulties and the problem of functioning
in a commercial environment where political allegiance plays an increasingly
significant role.
Specific concerns include:
* A physical assault on a journalist working for
the opposition newspaper Sme’ for, he believed, his coverage of the abduction
of the son of Slovak President Michal Kovac to Austria last August and
the suggestion that the Meciar government may have been implicated.
* Other problems faced by Sme’ itself: two printing
works in as many days refused to print the paper for no explicable reason.
The refusals were, unsurprisingly, followed by allegations that they were
prompted by “orders from above.”
* A radio journalist was sacked after he interviewed
an opposition politician, an incident highlighted last November by the
International Helsinki Federation of Human Rights, which noted that the
opposition already received “too little space” in the electronic media.
* The recent passage of a law restricting the media’s
use of languages other than Slovak. There is particular concern for the
effect this may have for the country’s substantial Hungarian- speaking
minority.
Given the polarization of the domestic news media,
there is clearly a role for foreign broadcasts governed by objectivity
and journalistic professionalism. While RFE should in no way actively seek
to disparage Slovakia or its government, it would clearly be serving no
useful purpose if it failed to ruffle any feathers. Although it is on the
decline, research in 1995 showed that it still had the largest audience
of any foreign broadcaster to Slovakia, with seven per cent of the population
listening regularly.
We await with interest the broadcasting council’s
final verdict on RFE, but suspect that whatever the outcome the strongly-
worded criticism is likely to have enhanced RFE’s reputation among its
Slovak listeners, who—after all—should be the ones to make their own decision
as to whether they think the people whose programmes they are listening
to are pawns in a sinister anti-Slovak ideological struggle.
A boost to its audience figures may be just what
RFE needs given that the US Congress is increasingly reluctant to subsidize
it and attempts to privatize individual language services have met with
mixed results: financial difficulties forced the Polish service to cease
broadcasting at the end of 1995, while the Czech operation, now known as
RSE Inc, has gone into partnership with Czech state radio in a new venture
called Czech Radio 6- Free Europe.
Back in Slovakia, the debate about media freedom
can be expected to hot up in the run- up to the passing of an as yet undefined
media law which Prime Minister Meciar has declared a priority for the coming
year.
CTK Account of Slovak Council Action
The following is the text of a report on January
10 by the Czech news agency CTK:
Radio Free Europe (RFE) could lose its licence to
broadcast to Slovakia, since it has not been keeping to the conditions
set when the licence was granted, the chairman of the Slovak Broadcasting
Council told journalists today.
Peter Juras recalled that these conditions were
“objectivity, impartiality and a reassuring tone,” and that the Slovak
service at RFE had agreed to abide by them. He said that RFE management
had been alerted to the matter and that if it did not take steps to put
things right, the licence could be revoked. “The question arises as to
whether the Slovak service of RFE is not an ideological tool in the hands
of interest groups in the USA against an independent Slovakia,” he added.
According to a survey carried out by the Broadcasting
Council of RFE’ s “Aktuality, Souvislosti, Argumenty” news programme in
November and December, the programme is based not only on defending the
views of the opposition against the government, but also on “negativism,
envy” and an extremely negative evaluation of the sovereign Slovak state
generally.
“The station’s listeners must regularly succumb
to pessimism and hopelessness,” Juras said, adding that the programme monitored
had not run one positive item about Slovakia throughout the period it was
being studied. Instead it had criticized the people who appeared before
the Slovak parliament building to support the approval of the law on the
official language in December. Describing them as “ feeble- minded people,”
it said that the Matica Slovenska patriotic association which promoted
the law was a club for former secret policemen, communists and careerists,
and ironically nicknamed Premier Vladimir Meciar “Molodyets”, a Russian
expression meaning “well done.”
Juras said the RFE Slovak service was also unsparing
of the Slovak opposition, pointing to a report on how the Democratic Left
Party (SDL) and Democratic Union (DEU) had voted for the Language Law which
was then signed by President Michal Kovac, which said the parties had “pushed
the president into a corner.”
The Broadcasting Council was filled with Meciar
supporters shortly after his election victory in 1994. The previous Meciar
government also had a tense relationship with RFE.
2. Text of report by the Slovak news agency TASR, January 11:
Through its news wire service the Slovak press agency
TASR is also monitoring Slovak broadcasts of the Radio Free Europe (RFE).
We can therefore competently confirm the objections
raised by the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) in its
resolution from Tuesday 9th January, said Dusan Kleiman, director- general
of the Slovakia press agency TASR, on Thursday 11th January.
The news reporting presented by this radio station
is unbalanced and non- objective. It is almost entirely dominated by critical
and negative material. This way of informing the public diverges from the
nature of a mass media institution, which RFE makes itself out to be, as
it is obviously performing the propaganda purposes of certain political
circles not leaning favourably towards the current government and Slovakia
TASR, emphasized Kleiman.
Nor can Slovakia leadership therefore associate
itself with the position of the Syndicate of Slovak Journalists that is
shifting the whole issue of the RRTV resolution from a factual to a political
platform. There are a number of newspapers and radio stations that are,
too, not leaning towards current government policies but are bringing balanced
and objective information about its activities and Slovakia’s political
reality. RRTV demands nothing else but the same thing from RFE.
The claims on attempts to silence this station blur
the real subject matter of the issue, and divert attention from breaking
principles of journalistic ethics by editors of this station under the
guise of freedom of expression, concludes Kleiman.
3. SSN journalists’ union anxious about “attempts to silence RFE (Report of TASR, January 10):
The SSN said that the energy put into finding arguments
for stopping RFE—from the Slovak government in the past and now from the
Slovak TV and Radio Broadcasting Council—was “appalling.”
According to the report, the SSN was convinced that
RFE was not at issue here, because stopping its broadcasts was not technically
feasible because it operates from studios in Prague and, in part, transmitters
in the Czech Republic. The SSN did not believe either that the US Congress
would jeopardize the funding of RFE. What was at issue, according to the
SSN, was the intimidation of the independent Slovak mass media, which could,
on the basis of a similar council ruling, encounter difficulties too.
The SSN did not agree that the revocation of a licence
should only be decided on the political grounds laid down by the council.
4. ZSN statement:
On January 11, the board of the Association of Slovak
Journalists (ZSN) issued a statement in which it says it “has fully endorsed
the assessment of the Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast presented on behalf
of the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting by its chairman Peter
Juras.
“The association has long regarded RFE broadcasting
as unprofessional from a journalistic perspective, and utterly unobjective.
The RFE’s distorted and deliberately negatively- oriented news reporting
about Slovakia flies in the face of the basic principles of journalistic
ethics and goals, according to ZSN. The association repudiates the position
of the Syndicate of Slovak Journalists that seeks to politicize the whole
affair by disguising the subject matter of the issue and disregards well-
known facts.”
“No responsible journalist honouring the good faith
of a community cannot afford to purposely mistake freedom of expression
and journalism for consciously misleading the community by spreading one-
sided, unobjective information and violating the principles of journalistic
ethics as practiced by RFE.”
5. Text of commentary by the Czech newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes’ (January 13)
Radio Free Europe’s RFE Slovak service is again the
centre of attention. Last year, the Slovak Council for Radio and Television
Broadcasting considered not granting a licence to RFE. Then on Wednesday
10th January it made a direct threat to withdraw the licence.
The reasons cited by the council are not only sad
proof of the state of mind of the Slovak ruling clique, but are a major
disgrace to the whole country.
RFE is not an ordinary station and this fact holds
especially true in the countries that—just a few years ago—were bending
under the yoke of a Communist regime. It is almost unbelievable how much
the current criticism—if not downright hatred—expressed by the council’s
members about RFE resembles the statements of the Communist bosses. Apparently,
the station’s editors are spreading despair throughout Slovakia, showing
contempt for Slovak statehood and evoking a pessimistic atmosphere.
What else is there to add? Prior to November 1989,
according to the official ideology, RFE cast aspersions on the socialist
system, caused distress among the population, spread fear and told people
fairy tales about the capitalist paradise.
Many more similarities could be found, but it is
more important to highlight one fundamental difference. At that time, RFE’s
broadcasts were jammed; at times, it could not be heard at all. Following
the collapse of Communism, however, their signal became clear and the station
soon acquired a prestigious reputation in each post-Communist country.
Nevertheless, differentiation came in tandem with
this. It wasn’t long before there were countries where RFE ceased to appeal
to the official circles. It is probably not just coincidence that these
were the countries where the Communists had retreated only nominally—in
other words, had merely founded parties with different names—and thus,
right from the start, they destroyed the green shoots of a democratic political
culture.
It is a sad fact that Slovakia is a country where
such tendencies have prevailed, and where the topic of withdrawing RFE’s
licence is even being discussed seriously. It should be stressed that Slovakia
is the only country where RFE is being talked about in these terms: in
some of the countries of the former Soviet Union the station has attracted
bitter invectives, but there has been no talk about revoking its licence.
The reason is as plain as day: RFE’s broadcasts cannot be terminated by
taking away its licence and the instigators of this are merely made to
look ridiculous by their talk of it.
RFE or its individual national editorial offices
can only be abolished by the US Congress, which has already done so in
several cases. The Polish, Hungarian and, partly, the Czech editorial offices
were closed down mainly because the United States came to the conclusion
that RFE’s mission in these countries had been fulfilled. But, RFE will
continue to broadcast in countries where the US Congress deems it necessary,
even if the local ruling circles were to strongly disagree.
So, in the final analysis, the Slovak attacks on
this station are—from the point of view of their initiators—counterproductive,
and their only repercussion is major international disgrace.
President Goncz has signed into law the Hungarian
media law that has caused heads to roll, citizens to march in the streets
and experts to pile provision on top of provision. The Hungarian
parliament approved the complex media bill with more than 90 per cent of
the votes in favor.
In addition to the government parties the Hungarian
Socialist Party and the Alliance of Free Democrats, the Hungarian Democratic
Forum and the Federation of Young Democrats-Hungarian Civic Party voted
for the bill. The Independent Smallholders Party rejected the bill while
the Christian Democratic People’s Party was divided in the vote.
Under the law, the second channel of state-owned
Hungarian Television, as well as Radio Danubius, will be privatized and
the public service radio and television stations, and Duna television a
satellite station, will function as joint-stock companies run by public
foundations and led by boards of trustees which are to ensure the public
interest.
The law establishes the National Radio and Television
Body, which will operate under direct parliamentary supervision. Its task
is to protect freedom of speech, coordinate the work of certain media market
participants, and to decide about free competitions for radio and television
frequencies.
The law also sets up the Hungarian Television Public
Foundation, the Hungarian Radio Public Foundation, and transforms the
Hungaria Television Foundation, which exercised the ownership rights of
the satellite Duna Television, into a public foundation. These three foundations
will, in theory, establish the clear-cut financing of these institutions,
and will seek to eliminate dependency on the budget and the prevailing
governments, with the hope of eliminating the possibility of political
interference. The public foundations will be managed by respective boards.
Under the law, Hungarian Radio and Hungarian Television
will be transformed into joint-stock companies (Duna Television operates
as such at present).
Prior to passage, at a December 16 meeting at the
Konrad Adenauer Foundation, representatives of the Hungarian Journalists’
Union (HJU), the Community of Hungarian Journalists (CHJ) and the Federation
of Hungarian Catholic Journalists (FHCJ) made their last objections.
Many argued argued that the radio and television bill was politically over-
regulated, professionally imperfect and financially unviable.
According to the conservative CHJ, the six-party
agreement on the bill was a product of general dissatisfaction with both
state-run Hungarian Radio and Hungarian Television. The liberal HJU
was of the view that while the law contains too many and too comples safeguards,
even a bad law is better than the absence of a law. With this law, the
union argued, the governing coalition has renounced the use of force. This
may mean that the electronic media will never be expropriated by any political
force. The FHCJ criticized the bill for specifying what it terms
a too low limit for the broadcasting of Hungarian-made programmes.
Because it is such an interesting private player in the post- Soviet regions, we follow the growth of CME, the American media group headed by cosmetic magnate Ronald Lauder, including press releases that it issues and accounts about it that occur in the Central and European press. Here are several items:
1. Concentration charges in the Czech Republic: In
November, Euromarketing, a publication of Crain Communications, reported
that the Czech Radio and Television Broadcasting Council announced it was
blocking attempts by CME to extend its radio/TV interests in the Czech
Republic. The following is taken from the Euromarketing Report:
The Czech council said that it stopped CME, the
majority shareholder in TV Nova, from gaining a foothold in the Czech radio
market by rejecting CME’s request to buy 28 % of Radio Nova Alfa.
Council spokeswoman Marina Landova said the council rejected the application
because “it is not acceptable from the point of view of concentration of
media and cross-ownership of media.”
CME announced its intention to buy the station in
December, 1994, and when the council declined to approve the sale. CME
appealed and the council agreed to reconsider its decision. During this
period, CME lent $1.6m to Radio Nova Alfa and helped hire new staff. The
radio station, previously known only as ‘Radio Alfa,’ used the funding
to transform both its name and image.
“We told CME that if they loaned money to the station
it was at their own risk. Now, the Ministry of Anti-Monopoly Activities
has decided the sale is not acceptable,” Landova says.
The council also struck a blow at Radio Nova by
fining the station’s owner, the Kaskola company, $38,000 for not adhering
to the conditions under which it gained the licence. Kaskola was originally
awarded a licence to set up a news-orientated station based on the Radio
Free Europe model, Landova explains. “The licence of Radio Alfa is a licence
for news radio and at the moment it’s a music radio station.” Kaskola plans
to appeal against the fine in court.
Vladimir Zelezny, managing director of TV Nova,
comments, “My guess is that it’s the first attempt to apply some anti-monopoly
or anti-trust policy, but it was not applied against any other (company),
so we think it’s the price of success. TV Nova is so successful that of
course (the council’s decision) can be taken as an exemplary punishment
for the success. There are other ways to convert (the ownership) and (they
are) strictly legal. CME tried the most straightforward way, but of course
there are some others which are provided by Czech law and which can be
easily used.”
2. Text of report by the Czech news agency CTK on January 19:
The Czech Nova commercial television station, owned
by the US Central European Media Enterprises (CEME) company, earns millions
of dollars but for the prize of distorting the culture of a nation devastated
already by communism, today’s issue of the daily Prace’ writes.
Jan Culik, a professor of Czech studies at Glasgow
University, writes in the daily that the establishment of Nova in February
1994 was by far the most successful appearance of a new television station
in the world history. Referring to an article published by the British
Financial Times’ on January 15, he writes that Nova earned nearly 20m dollars
in the first part of 1995.
The CEME, which already owns several television
stations in the post-communist Europe, including Slovenia and Romania,
is going to get licences for broadcasting in Poland and Ukraine. If it
gets them, it may broadcast for more than 100m viewers in the post-communist
countries by 2000 and earn up to 2-3bn dollars from advertisements annually.
But what shall it do to the people’s culture, Culik asks?
In 1994 the volume of television advertisements
in the Czech Republic reached 96m dollars. Nova rules about 70 per cent
of the advertisement market, Culik adds.
Culik quotes the Financial Times’as saying that
Nova is a very effective money machine. Thanks to its commercial success,
the CEME managed to penetrate to the American Nasdaq capital market and
gained 168m dollars of investments for its activities in the post-communist
Europe. It is clear that such astronomical sums can easily compete with
the Czech public television, Culik writes.
Though earning millions of dollars, Nova probably
violates its licence, Culik writes, referring to a recent issue of the
weekly Respekt’.
In response to a journalist’s statement that Nova
“broke the law by a change of licence promises,” a spokeswoman for the
Television Broadcasting Council was cited in Respekt’ as saying “We cannot
do anything about it. We cannot take the licence from them. Can you imagine
what it would mean?”
Culik goes on to say that Czech viewers should demand
from Nova high-quality and professional reporting, which would fight Czech
isolationism, a balance between entertainment and politically independent
television journalism and an effort to maintain certain ethnic and cultural
standards, not spread vulgar speech.
3. Romanian Venture Announcement
CME and its local partner in Romania, Media Pro International
(MPI) announced in mid-December that they have selected Scientific-Atlanta,
Inc.’s PowerVu(TM) digital video compression system to expand its
efforts to develop commercial television in Romania. Called PRO TV,
the Romanian programmer is establishing the first nationwide commercial
television network in the country.
In its press release, CME said that PRO TV’s television
programming will be distributed using a Scientific-Atlanta digital video
compression system and a 4.5-meter satellite earth station antenna near
Bucharest for transmission/reception. CME plans to install Scientific-Atlanta’s
MPEG-based (Moving Pictures Experts Group) compression equipment in December
and follow that with the installation of the company’s PowerVu digital
compression system in early 1996.
CME plans to use approximately 100 Scientific-Atlanta
digital satellite receivers across Romania for reception of PRO TV’s programming.
During the past year, the company has been obtaining program rights for
Romania and other countries and currently controls the rights to 600 film
titles and its acquisitions include such U.S. series as “ER,” “The X Files,”
and “NYPD Blue.”
According to the company’s press release, Media
Pro International is the largest media group in Romania, currently holding
several regional television licenses and four radio stations in Romania.
“We tested the Scientific-Atlanta equipment in London
at Maxat, France Telecom’s subsidiary, and were very impressed by the performance,”
said Len Fertig, President and CEO of CME. “Digital video compression
will enable us to deliver a wide variety of programming to cable headends
in Romania in a cost effective manner.”
“PRO TV’s digital video compression network will
play an important role in enhancing the delivery of additional programming
in Romania,” said Dwight Duke, president of the satellite television networks
division at Scientific-Atlanta. “We are eager to help areas, such
as Central Europe, as they establish a television network infrastructure
to provide entertainment options for their citizens.” The PowerVu system
uses MPEG 2- and DVB-compliant (Digital Video Broadcast) digital video
compression to increase the amount of programming a satellite transponder
can handle and, according to CME, opens the doorway to a new era of enhanced
television options for direct-to-home networks, broadcasting, program distribution,
and business television applications. CME will use transponder space
leased from France Telecom on the EUTELSAT II F1 satellite.
CME celebrated the launch of its partnership by
announcing that Pro TV was watched by 50 percent of all TV homes receiving
its programming in the first weekend of operation, according to the independent
media research agency Data Media.
According to CME, twice as many viewers in the Bucharest
area tuned into PRO TV as the next most popular television choice, the
state-owned channel TVR1.
In the central Bucharest area, three quarters of
a million viewers tuned to PRO TV although the new service is still in
the process of extending the reach of its broadcast signal. By comparison,
TVR1, which enjoys almost universal coverage, was seen by only half of
its potential viewing audience.
For further information, contact Gerry Buckland Tel:
+44 (0)181 882 0499 or Eugene Secunda Tel: +44 (0)+1 212 777 3841; both
are associated with CME.