Barely a week since it started broadcasting, religious channel UTV ended up without a director after Edgar Bonnici Cachia left the station after a disagreement with its owner, Dun Gwann Farrugia.

Totally financed by Fr Farrugia himself, with a capital investment of around Lm0.5 million – mostly inherited – UTV started its first broadcasts from Luqa last month on the Go digital terrestrial television platform with a mission “to spread God’s word and help people in need”.

Bonnici Cachia, who had flanked Fr Farrugia at the press conference launching the station last month, insisted that he was supposed to manage the station but seven days since the first broadcast he tendered his resignation.

Speaking to MaltaToday, Bonnici Cachia said he could no longer bear “the mediocrity and hard-headedness” of the priest.

“It’s either everything as he says or northing,” Bonnici Cachia said. “I felt I was only there for the name, that there was no place for me.”

The former director said the priest did not conduct any feasibility studies before going on air, and that there was no money left to produce good programmes.

“I can’t imagine how he is going to broadcast a full schedule by October, it’s too amateurish,” he added, referring to Fr Farrugia’s target to start broadcasting all day long later this year.

Fr Farrugia confirmed Bonnici Cachia’s resignation.

“He left for his own reasons,” Fr Farrugia said. “All I can say is that he promised to deliver lots of things and when I reminded him of that he did not like it. Now I am searching for a new director, besides sales people and other volunteers.”

Run by volunteers and registered as commercial company – U Communications Ltd, set up by Fr Farrugia’s Nghinu lil Hutna Fil-Bzonn foundation – UTV boasts the largest studios on the islands and includes among its assets an outside broadcasting unit meant to broadcast live daily mass and the rosary.

Fr Farrugia is described by close friends as “enthusiastic and well-meaning” but misguided when it comes to television.

“He would like to leave the station as a monument,” a friend said. “He really believes in spreading the message of Christ through television, but has no idea what the medium entails.”

“Some told me I was crazy,” Fr Farrugia admitted. “But I believe in this, I believe in broadcasting God’s word, and I’m sure we can make it.”