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Gerald Fenech
The PBS editorial board has omitted Bondiplus and L-Ispjun from the programmes shortlisted for the 2007/8 TV programme season: a decision which is reported to have raised eyebrows in government circles.
The national station’s board of directors is also reported to have been taken off guard by this decision, although inside sources have informed this newspaper that “nothing is final.”
The decision to omit both programmes, together with Passju, came to light last Thursday when an email which was circulated to all the producers and independent production houses who had applied for a programme on TVM, revealed the list of short listed programmes on the national station.
The surprise omission of the two programmes, produced by Where’s Everybody and Watermelon Productions respectively, has confounded expectations of the editorial board’s recently appointed chairman John Camilleri.
The choice of Camilleri, himself a former personal assistant to Eddie Fenech Adami, had been criticised in quarters on account of his close previous associations with the Nationalist administration.
The rest of the board, consisting of psychologist Maryanne Lauri and former MLP president Dominic Fenech, approved the shortlist, which for the record includes Rachel Vella’s popular Tista Tkun Int, Eileen Montesin’s Dejjem Tieghek Becky and Where’s Everybody productions Tikka fuq Kollox, Kulhadd fil-Pjazza and Xarabank. Programmes proposed by MediaToday have also been shortlisted.
Bondiplus recently came in for harsh criticism from the PBS editorial board, which rapped producer and presenter Lou Bondi for the way in which a programme featuring Labour’s new education secretary Wenzu Mintoff degenerated into a slanging match characterised by flying insults and . The issue also ended up in court.
Watermelon production L-Ispjun was also in the news recently, after the Dutch company which holds the right to the Big Brother reality TV series sued the local company for allegedly copying its programme format without paying royalties.
Efforts to contact PBS Chairman Joe Fenech Conti for comments proved unsuccessful yesterday.
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