What’s a month without a censorship flap? Ekho Moskvy
radio on January 20 reported that “on the orders of the management of Russian
Public TV several cuts were made in Aleksandr Lyubimov’s “Vzglyad” program
dedicated to the Pervomayskoye events. In an interview, Lyubimov had told
Agence France Presse that he wanted to show that official reports about
Pervomayskoye were not true, but Russian Public TV did not allow him to
do so.
Lyubimov wished to counter a report by the government
that the Novosibirsk OMON Special-Purpose Militia Detachment members
captured by the Chechen terrorist Raduyev’s group had been shot dead, with
an interview showing them alive. The ORT management also cut an interview
with Aslan Maskhadov, in which the head of Dudayev’s staff expressed his
negative attitude towards Raduyev’s terrorist act. Some remarks by Arkadiy
Volskiy were also cut, Lyubimov stated.
Ekho Moskvy carried the following comments by Sergey
Blagovolin, director-general of Russian Public TV, justifying deletion
of the the interview with Aslan Maskhadov, using arguments similar to those
used by the British government, anciently, for barring Sinn Fein from British
airwaves.
Blagovolin: The “Vzglyad” programme assumed quite
a critical attitude towards the authorities. That is the authors’ indisputable
right, of course. But when it comes to giving the floor to a representative
of a regime famous for capturing women, children, the sick and the old
and so on—we do not think that this is appropriate, and that’s that. Many
people are now confused: one thinks that if an anti-terrorist operation
is carried out badly, then one may even have grounds to justify terrorism.
In my opinion, this point of view is totally unacceptable.
Yeltsin Vetoes ORT Suspension Bill
Russian President Boris Yeltsin has rejected, December
20, the federal law “On the reorganization, privatization and liquidation
of state television and radio broadcasting organizations in the Russian
Federation” in accordance with part 3 of article 107 of the constitution
of the Russian Federation.
The proposed law would have halted and reversed
the formation of ORT, the successor to Ostankino. According to ITAR- TASS,
the reasons for the veto were included in a message from the president
to the chairman of the State Duma, Ivan Rybkin, the text of which the head
of state’s press service sent to ITAR-TASS.
The proposed law was passed by the State Duma on
24th November and passed to the Federation Council, which ratified it on
9th December 1995.
The Duma formula established that “the state television
and radio broadcasting organizations in Russia be reorganized, privatized
and liquidated according to the conditions and procedure set by federal
law with the aim of maintaining a system of state television and radio
broadcasting that guarantees citizens and public organizations equal access
to the mass media.”
Before such a law is passed, the document said,
it is necessary to “suspend the current] reorganization of state television
and radio broadcasting organizations” . The measure asked the president
and government of the Russian Federation to “bring legal acts on reorganizing,
privatizing and liquidating state television and radio broadcasting organizations,
including those linked to the creation of the Russian Public TV ORT joint-stock
company, into line with the adopted law.”
The President, according to ITAR- TASS, “deemed
it impossible to sign the federal law submitted to him since, in the opinion
of the head of state, several clauses of its articles do not conform with
articles of the civil code of Russia and violate clauses of several articles
of the constitution of the Russian Federation.”
On the same day, the Russian government passed a
resolution on the creation of a State Fund of Television and Radio Programmes
(Gosteleradiofond), in accordance with a decree by President Boris Yeltsin.
Under the resolution the principal function of the
fund will consist in “selecting, forming and storing” programs aired on
TV or radio as part of the cultural legacy of Russia’s peoples. The fund
will also carry out research in the storage, search and restoration of
TV and radio programmes of cultural value. Anatoliy Vystorobets has been
appointed Gosteleradiofond head.
The First Channel for RTV?
The juggling of channels and occupants, among ORT
and RTV is and remains an important question. At a meeting
in late December, reported by ITAR-TASS, of the Russian Federal Television
and Radio Service, it was suggested that Russian Television (RTV), now
on channel 2, should be moved to channel 1 currently occupied by Russian
Public TV, ORT. That was the opinion, at least, of leaders of regional
state-owned television companies.
The argument was that Russia’s sole state-owned
federal television company should have maximum coverage and be a hub of
the Russian news network, presumably displacing ORT and the old Ostankino.
Valeriy Tolskiy, the chairman of the council of
directors of regional television companies, cited Russia’s recent legislative
elections as an instructive example of why RTV should move to the central
channel to co-exist with Russian Public Television ORT on it. RTV’s
present channel was, in this view, overshadowed in the elections by regional
companies, making telecasting a motley affair. Tolskiy argued that the
position and role of state-owned television be made definitive in advance
of Russia’s presidential election.
Few Unhappy with Ukraine’s Downgrade of ORT
According to the Ukrainian National TV and Radio
Council, at a press conference December 26, only 10 per cent of Ukrainians
are unhappy with Russian Public TV’s ORT switch to another channel.
The chairman of the council, Viktor Petrenko, said
“some regional TV centers are not able to comply fully with the order to
switch the channels and have left ORT on the first channel.”
Viktor Petrenko was quoted by Unian News Agency
as claiming that three TV companies were bidding for three national TV
channels which would be set up in the next five years. In addition to the
national TV company public Ukrainian TV and CIT, they include the Independent
Ukrainian TV Corporation, 29 per cent of whose shares belong to ORT and
whose founders are the State Property Fund of Ukraine, the Business Cooperation
Fund and the Oleksander Pushkin Fund.
Meanwhile, a January 9 statement of Ukraine’s Council
of Democratic Parties patted the government on the back for last August’s
channel shift favoring Ukrainian Television at the expense of Russia’s
ORT. The statement says that forces hostile to Ukrainian statehood—who
supported a so-called common information space—picketed Ukrainian TV’s
studios, intimidating viewers with talk of a news blackout, the rupturing
of ties with Russia and various other misfortunes. However, according
to the statement, “the public quickly grasped the advantages of Ukrainian
TV’s new policy which had, in a short space of time, brought about improvements
in the quality and entertainment value of its programs.”
The statement pointed out that not everyone accepted
the fact that Ukraine had begun implementing its own policies regarding
television. Supporting the ideological and financial interests of Russia’s
ORT, according to the statement, was people’s deputy Volodymyr Aleksyeyev,
deputy chairman of the Supreme Council’s Commission for Legislative Safeguards
of Freedom of Speech and Mass Media. Writing in the Holos Ukrayiny’newspaper,
he directed “all his venom” at the implementation of Ukrainian TV’s policies.
The statement praised the insistence of the Supreme
Council’s committee of inquiry that the channel not become a so-called
parliamentary channel. If this had happened, it would have become a national
communist tribunal, the statement noted.
Ukraine’s control over its broadcasting was one
more step towards real independence, says the statement from the Council
of Democratic Parties.
Slovak Language Law
The Czech news service, CTK, published a report,
on January 2, which argued that the controversial Slovak law which took
effect on 1st January, establishing Slovak as the state language, was unlikely
to damage private Slovak and Hungarian-language radio stations in south
Slovakia, partly because they are adjusting.
The report quoted Julius Pinter, head of the private
Radio Star station in Nove Zamky, who said that the law would not affect
the station’s programming fundamentally, even its “Concert Requests” program
in which presenters spoke in either Slovak or Hungarian, depending on listeners’
wishes. Pinter added that the program’s format had changed: listeners’requests
were now recorded, and those in the Hungarian language were sometimes translated.
“We must maintain our present policy, try to keep
disputes to a minimum and do our best to survive,” Pinter told CTK, adding
that his station would not survive if a half-million crown fine was imposed
on it for violating the language law.
The report recalled that after the law was passed
by the Slovak parliament (on 15th November), Pal Csaky, an ethnic Hungarian
leader, had said that it would prevent the use of minority languages on
private radio stations, even when presenters talked to listeners. Csaky
said that if the law was to be observed to the letter, listeners would
have to speak in Slovak initially, and only afterwards express themselves
in their mother tongue. Bilingual broadcasts contributed to tolerance between
people living in nationally-mixed areas, he added.
The report concluded that although the implementation
of the law was still in question, the state-run Rock FM station (third
program of Slovak Radio) had already made changes, eliminating all Anglo-American
expressions from its broadcasts.
Bulgaria Radio Journalist Dismissal
On December 20, a rally protesting the dismissal
of seven journalists employed on the Khorizont Program of state-owned Bulgarian
Radio and the violation of freedom of speech was held in front of the Bulgarian
Radio building. The seven are among 50 journalists who on 21st November
signed a protest declaration claiming that there was censorship at the
radio.
According to press reports, the rally, organized
by journalists from all mass media, was attended by intellectuals, National
Assembly deputies from the Union of Democratic Forces, People’s Union and
the Rights and Freedoms Movement, and trade union representatives from
the KNSB Confederation of Independent Trade Unions.
Speakers called for the formation of an entity that
would campaign for the observance of Article 40 of the Bulgarian Constitution,
which states that the press and the other mass media are not subject to
censorship. Others called for the resignation of Director-General
Vyacheslav Tunev on the grounds that he had damaged the prestige and authority
of Bulgarian Radio.
Vyacheslav Tunev, head of Bulgarian National Radio,
defended the dismissal of the journalists, saying that they had been involved
in “political” activities.
“What happened at the Bulgarian National Radio BNR
this month is not a spontaneous reaction of a group of journalists, united
by the desire to resolve problems accumulated in the Khorizont Programme
BNR’s in the course of years, but a massive political action, organized
from the outside.”
At a news conference immediately following the signing
of this declaration the radio managers said no one of the protesters will
be fired.
In a letter to Prime Minister Zhan Videnov, the
Reporters Sans Frontieres international organization voiced its concern
over the dismissals of the seven radio journalists and insisted on the
reinstatement of those discharged.
Zhan Videnov, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, gave a
commitment to assist, as head of government and party leader, in promoting
a broad public debate on drafting media legislation and in ensuring that
the Bulgarian parliament speedily ratifies the Council of Europe’s media
rulings.
The prime minister believed that there is serious
conflict at Bulgarian National Radio, but declined to support either side,
at the moment.
In early December, Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev
talked with Madrid ABC’ correspondent Rafael Alvarado in Sofia. The
published interview, entitled “ Zhelev: The BSP wants to usurp the media”,
published by the Sofia daily Trud’ on 4 December included the following
exchange:
[Q] Mr President, you often mention that the mass
media are subjected to “brutal censorship” and that “alarming symptoms”
are evident in this respect. Could you clarify what you have in mind?
[A] I think that the development of events shows
that this is a real threat for freedom of speech in Bulgaria. The attempts
by the BSP parliamentary majority to control and directly guide radio and
television programmes show that there really is a striving to usurp the
mass media. Reduced Parliamentary Television Coverage
in Belarus.
According to Belarus’ Belpan agency, the chairman
of the Belarusian State Radio and Television Broadcasting Company, Ryhor
Kisel claimed, in late December, “We will abandon the former practice of
covering parliamentary sessions on TV,” in response to a question as to
how the company intends to cover the work of the Supreme Soviet of the
13th convocation.
“Not a single civilized country gives two or three
hours of such sessions daily. The presence of television equipment
sometimes turns the parliament into something else, and we begin to frighten
people with our predictions of doom every day,” Mr Kisel explained.
Kisel promised that the opening of the session will receive live broadcasting
on national radio, and before the chairman of the Supreme Soviet is elected
Belarusian Television will make concluding newscasts for about one hour
every day at the most convenient time.
After the parliamentary speaker is elected, the
course of the session will be covered in summary in special releases. “As
for the work of the Presidium, the Supreme Soviet committees and the factions,
we are sure to be able to deal with it in the future and make a television
broadcast at weekly or twice monthly intervals,” Mr Kisel said.
As for reproaches by MPs of the previous convocation
who repeatedly spoke about the bad coverage of sessions by television,
Ryhor Kisel responded with the following statement: “Our task is to cover
the work in full measure. But we have various forms for this. We tried
to reach an agreement with the former Supreme Soviet, but we failed because
of the opposition, which blockaded our proposals for a civilized covering
of parliamentary activities.”
Sour TV New Year for Bosnia’s Izetbegovic
Much was made of the reaction of the Bosnian President,
Alija Izetbegovic, to television frivolities on New Year’s Eve. Here
is a full text, as reported by the Belgrade newspaper Nasa Borba’, of his
letter to the editors of Radio-Television Bosnia-Hercegovina, expressing
his personal views:
Gentlemen, it was with a sense of displeasure that
I watched the new year celebrations in Bosnia. I think that the vast majority
of our people, particularly the fighters, felt the same kind of sadness
after the program. They wondered whether what was presented as a popular
new year celebration was enjoyed by a minority, perhaps not more than a
thousandth, of our people.
What about the rest of our people? If they celebrated
the new year at all, if they had the chance or the will to do so, they
did so modestly and in a way that would not hurt the feelings of the thousands
of people who lost people dear to them as well as their homes. It was only
a small number of insolent and ruthless individuals who dared—while graves
and wounds were still fresh—to get drunk and make faces before the cameras
as if nothing had happened.
You, the radio and television editors, bear some
of the responsibility for this. You showed this without comment; even with
approval it seems. We are a European country, but that does not mean that
we should have an open door to European vices—alcohol, pornography, drugs
and licentiousness of all kinds. We will follow European efficiency, punctuality,
diligence and sense of organization, but we shall not follow Europe and
the United States in their lack of judgment and measure. I would also ask
you not to impose on us Santa Claus and other symbols that are alien to
our people. Let people have them at home if they wish to . . . .
Of course, we do not want to resort to censorship,
but will ensure that people reject with contempt the questionable values
that are imposed on them in the name of culture and freedom, but which
in fact represent a bogus culture and freedom.
Serbian Satellite To Further “Objectivity”
Slobodan Rakitic, president of the Serbian People’s Congressional Party, said at a party rally held in Kraljevo, south of Belgrade, that “There can be no change in the situation in the country without objective television.” As a result, “an objective Serb satellite television is a certain and imminent reality,” Rakitic said while attending the assembly of the World Congress of Serbs. According to Rakitic, such a satellite project has been designed by Boro Vesnic and will be supported financially by Serbian businessmen worldwide. Equipment for the Serb satellite television has already been procured and is currently in Paris where the studios are, although the program will be broadcast from London, according to Rakitic.
Movement in Czech Private TV Ownership
The Czech Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting
has discussed, in early January, whether to approve the sale of Premiera
TV private station shares to insurance giant Ceska Pojistovna and its daughter
company, capital investment firm Kapitalova Investicni Spolecnost.
According to the news agency, CTA, contracts for
the sale of 10 per cent of Premiera, one of two commercial television stations
in the Czech Republic the other is Nova TV , to Ceska Pojistovna and 14
per cent to Kapitalova Investicni Spolecnost have already been concluded
by the parties, but they are conditional on the council’s approval.
If approved, the two companies will join Stratton
Investments, whose purchase of 15 per cent of Premiera TV was endorsed
by the council on 12th December 1995, in trying to boost the popularity
of the station, which claims only 3 per cent of the Czech viewing audience.
Critical to the council’s authorization is whether
the potential buyers are owners of other media outlets. The council has
stated that it will not allow the sale of shares in Premiera TV to a buyer
with other media holdings to avoid the creation of a media empire.
ORT Promises to Pay Latvian Bills
According to Latvian Radio (January 9, 1996), Russian
Public Television ORT is prepared to repay its rebroadcasting debts to
Latvia. If this is done, ORT will be broadcast in Latvia until the
end of the year. The National Radio and Television Council has received
a letter from ORT promising that 20 per cent of last year’s debt will be
paid in January and the remainder in February. No specific sum was mentioned,
however.
Until 1st April there will be no changes in the
rebroadcasting arrangements on Latvian TV, but thereafter the rebroadcasts
of ORT may be transferred to another channel.
Television Council has received a letter from ORT
promising that 20 per cent of last year’s debt will be paid in January
and the remainder in February. No specific sum was mentioned, however.
Until 1st April there will be no changes in the
rebroadcasting arrangements on Latvian TV, but thereafter the rebroadcasts
of ORT may be transferred to another channel.
Material for this month’s “Sign of theTimes” was adapted, in large
part, from the excellent BBC service “Summary of World Broadcasts” and
their “World Broadcasting Information” monitoring program.