Mediatoday’s Reporter received 10% of public service TV funds in 2008
Matthew Vella Mediatoday, the company that publishes MaltaToday and produces TV programme Reporter, was handed 10% of the Extended Public Service Obligation (EPSO) funds for 2008-2009.
EPSO figures tabled in parliament and passed on by the Ministry of Education to this newspaper shows that contrary to what The Sunday Times reported on 28 June, Mediatoday is not the recipient of the bulk – 68% – of public funds for broadcasting.
Where’s Everybody was allocated a total of €121,294 – 14.5% of the €834,075 in EPSO funds for 2008-2009 – for the production of current affairs programme Bondiplus and the documentary Bijografiji.
Next in line was the Church’s Media Centre, with €108,583 for producing 506, Il-Kelma Tal-Mulej, and Qalbinnies.
Mediatoday was allocated €88,540 from the EPSO funds for 193 editions of Reporter, which is aired five days a week.
However, as agreed in negotiations with the Public Broadcasting Services, Reporter gets no form of advertising revenue for its 10-minute programme, in which presenter Saviour Balzan interviews public personalities.
TV productions are restricted to a maximum of 12 minutes of advertising for each hour of programming. That would mean that programmes such as Bondiplus – despite getting €30,000 from EPSO funds – have enough space to generate considerable advertising revenue. When contacted, Where’s Everybody director PJ Vassallo declined to enter into details about the programme’s commercial arrangements.
The Ministry of Education declined to reveal which of the EPSO beneficiaries were allowed to retain advertisnig revenue.
Other programmes on PBS, such as Xarabank, do not get any public funds, which is why they are not included in the EPSO.
Some programmes also have agreements on whether they pay or not for their airtime on PBS.
TV programmes that receive EPSO funds are decided by the PBS board of directors after requests for proposals.
In 2007-2008, the biggest recipient of EPSO funds was Dee Media with €126,750 to produce drama series It-Tmien Nota and children’s show Tini 5. Where’s Everybody was allocated €113,257 to produce Bondiplus, Tikka, and X’Qala l-Bahar.
Mediatoday was allocated €88,487 for Reporter for 2008-2008.
In its unsigned report, the Sunday Times also hazarded production costs for Reporter at just €800 per week, an incorrect estimate intended to downplay the actual costs involved in airing the daily programme.
But the newspaper also omitted to mention that between 2002 and 2007, Reporter received very minimal public funds. For the 2006/7 season, Mediatoday was allocated just €11,205 in EPSO funds – just 1.8% of the total €599,100.
That year, the bulk of funds – €165,558 – went to Where’s Everybody programmes Bondiplus and Misrah Kola. Next in line were Dee Media for Tini 5, which received €82,346, and the Media Centre for Il-Kelma Tal-Mulej and Qalbinnies (€65,521).
Mediatoday reply
In a letter to The Sunday Times, Mediatoday managing director Roger de Giorgio said the story appearing in the STOM did not give a complete picture of the facts of the case.
De Giorgio said the contract awarded to Mediatoday came after a call for applications, and was awarded after negotiations with PBS.
De Giorgio said the costs to produce the daily programme was a “a commercial matter to be decided between the producer and the media house chosen”; and that Mediatoday does not receive money from sponsors, to the contrary of other programmes which benefit from public service obligations funds, but which are allowed to retain advertising and sponsorships.
“The Times did not seek to list all programmes benefiting from the PSO funds... It did not list the expenses involved in the production of other programmes, or how much money in advertising they get to retain...
“This pick-and-choose method of reporting leads me to suspect that the Times, while appearing to be intent on tarnishing our editor’s credibility, is really dead set on directly targeting the commercial interests of a competitor,” de Giorgio said.
The Mediatoday director added that the STOM story came at a time when Mediatoday was negotiating with PBS following a public call for programming.
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Search:
MALTATODAY
BUSINESSTODAY
Download MaltaToday Sunday issue front page in pdf file format
All the interviews from Reporter on MaltaToday's YouTube channel.
