Last update - 00:00 10/07/2007
If Channel 1 closes
By Haaretz Editorial
The Israel Broadcasting Authority is on the brink of economic collapse. While there are many alternatives to its radio stations, the problem is Channel 1 television, for which there is no alternative. The recovery program cannot be limited to firing 850 workers (out of 1,900), as the consulting company hired by the IBA recommended. Staff reductions are essential to the IBA's recovery, but are insufficient to turn outdated and uninteresting broadcasts into something worth viewing - or financing via a license fee. IBA workers must understand that they have long since lost the last of the bargaining power they once had. Apathy to Channel 1's fate is so great that no one will miss it if it closes, aside from a few politicians who regularly receive air time on it.
Unfortunately for public broadcasting, minister Eitan Cabel, whose full-time job was dealing with the IBA, resigned. In Israel's unstable politics, no minister remains in his job long enough to do it properly. Cabel managed to appoint Moshe Gavish as chairman of the IBA, and he appears eager to save public broadcasting. The new minister in charge, Isaac Herzog, must quickly set himself to this task as well. If the Finance Ministry grants fair severance pay, and IBA workers understand that the alternative is the end of public broadcasting, perhaps the miracle that many are hoping for will happen. If Gavish and the IBA's director general, Mordechai Sklar, waste their energy fighting each other, it will spell the end of public broadcasting.
The Justice Ministry has drafted a new broadcasting authority bill that would sever public broadcasting from politics and establish a system for appointing a public council that would run the IBA independently. This bill should be passed by the Knesset; the question is whether the prime minister is able, or even wants, to do so. It could be that Ehud Olmert's longstanding views on the importance of independent public broadcasting have changed since he became prime minister and began enjoying the benefits of a politically dependent broadcaster.
Channel 1 is important in order to save the public from the reign of the commercial channels, which primarily excel at quiz shows, magicians and displays of vulgarity copied from abroad. From time to time, they produce interesting and original series, but in general, commercial broadcasting supplies a shallow and mind-numbing viewing experience.
Public broadcasting is supposed to provide quality, not boredom. It is supposed to be a principal sphere of activity for local artists, showing dramas, documentaries, investigative and news reports and more intelligent television for children - without ignoring ratings, but also without being enslaved to them. Low ratings are a sign not of quality, but of failure - because a good public broadcaster must relate to its viewers as consumers of content, whereas a commercial broadcaster relates to its viewers as consumers of merchandise. Proper management and outsourcing production to local artists would revitalize public broadcasting, and also raise the level of the commercial channels.
If the IBA union refuses to cooperate with the reform and sabotages the dismissals, or if the cabinet and Knesset fail to enact the new broadcasting authority bill, which would ensure proper, independent management, the IBA will close within a few months due to enormous debts and a lack of public interest in its continued existence.