/ world today news/ In May 2013, the supervisor in the Council for Electronic Media (CEM) from the presidential quota, Maria Stoyanova, voted against the election of the sports journalist Radoslav Yankulov as the general director of the BNR. The other four members of the regulatory body, led by its chairman Assoc. Georgi Lozanov, supported him.
In July of the following year, Stoyanova already heaped praises on Yankulov, as is clear from the minutes of the CEM meeting, published last week on the website of the BNR: “By the way, Mr. Director General, you, for this one year during which you lead the BNR, actually you brought in, infused and gave meaning and life to the Board of Directors, which is an extremely important body… The other thing I want to congratulate you on, I’m not being stingy with this… is that a vision for the whole is recognized in your activity. In addition, you impose the “BNR” brand, which is not easy…”
A year later, on the occasion of the conflict with the cut fees of journalists in the BNR and the resignation of Yankulov, which they demanded, Stoyanova abruptly changed direction. And he defines the situation as “a management crisis from which the image of radio as an institution suffers greatly.” She is absolutely right when she says that “the taxpayer spends a lot of money to fund it, so our responsibility as supervisors is great.” And he accuses the BNR leadership of not helping in any way to quickly clarify the facts. But why doesn’t SEM want to grab the hot potato?
The head of media supervision, already in his sixth term, associate professor Lozanov, continues to stand behind Yankulov’s election. And he belittles what is happening in BNR as a “trade union protest”. Even if it is established that Yankulov’s concept, with which he was elected as general director, has not been implemented, the council formally has no instrument for his dismissal, Stoyanova is convinced. Although it is written in black and white in the Law on Radio and Television that the CEM elects and dismisses the general directors of BNT and BNR.
But does CEM really have nothing to do with the protests in BNR? Is the dispute just “labour-legal”, as Polina Karastoyanova, the chairperson of the Media and Culture Committee in the Parliament, insisted?
Formally speaking, the formally inconceivable regulatory body CEM, and even less relevant parliamentary committee, which is a representative of the state power, really have no business in solving an apparently trade union problem.
The protest of journalists from BNR began after the management of the radio announced a plan to cut budget expenditures by 10% for 2015 in accordance with the requirements of the Law on the State Budget. They apply to the national radio and BNT. In BNR, 70 vacant staff positions are closed, but the fees are also cut, with the help of which journalists swallow their low salaries more easily. However, in total the two still quasi-public media receive the same budgets as last year – BGN 42.1 million for radio and BGN 65.2 million for television. But apparently, in order not to have to increase them, internal cuts are required.
And while Yankulov claims that 700 people from the radio have signed that they approve of the layoff measures, the journalists have come out in protest, declaring the management in opaque actions and demanding his resignation. “Add to that the series of appointments of highly inappropriate people to key Radio positions, and it is clear that it is high time for the management to go… Immediately.” They also insist that the CEM intervene.
This is how the labor-legal conflict turns into a managerial one. And it cannot be otherwise after the dismissals and departure of famous names from BNR, the unsuccessful transfer of shows and the “installation” of convenient new ones by the management.
However, journalists from the BNR should be angry not only with Yankulov, for picking in their pockets, with CEM, for turning a blind eye to the management crisis, and with Polina Karastoyanova, who did not give them the floor at the last meeting of the media commission. It is right to criticize themselves because at the end of last year they did not react when the government submitted the draft budget to the parliament, which imposed a ten percent cut in the expenses for royalties. Then the radio journalists did not protest under the windows of Finance Minister Goranov, nor under those of Prime Minister Borissov, nor in front of the GERB-dominated parliament. Moreover, BNR and BNT did not send representatives to the meeting of the committee on media and culture when their budgets were discussed. In protest against the appointment of Slavi Binev from the Patriotic Front as head of the commission… It is no secret that prominent journalists from the BNR, incl. its union leaders sympathize with protesters and reformers who are now in power as a side dish of GERB.
So, few see that the dog is buried in the wrong model of public media funding. They are almost entirely dependent on the state, which, when it wants, allows itself to treat them as its subjects. Any governing majority, either because of real budget problems or to punish them for disobedience, can cut their budget.
Bulgaria is one of the few countries in the EU – along with Spain, Luxembourg, Hungary and several others – whose public media are directly financed by the state. A small percentage of the revenues of BNT and BNR come from advertising – another painful topic, especially for private electronic media. They are rightly dissatisfied that while they receive appetizing morsels from the state budget, their competitors have the opportunity to bring from above and from the market. Seen from another angle, the broadcasting of advertising hides the danger of both media falling under economic and corporate dependencies.
The third financial pillar of BNT and BNR, which was supposed to replace state subsidies and make them independent from the whims of the budget, was never built, although it was provided for in the Radio and Television Act (RAT). This is the infamous funding through radio and television fees. If it worked, citizens who use radio and television receivers would pay the stipulated monthly fee of 0.6 percent of the minimum wage for each registered electricity meter. In earlier versions of the ТРТ, adopted in 1998, it was foreseen that from 2007 the subsidization from the state budget would be suspended and would be completely replaced by the fees coming into the Radio and Television Fund.
The philosophy of this funding model is to ensure the distance of public media from the state. What’s more – in the countries of Western Europe, where the system works very well, there is no body that can “cut” the amount of fees, as the Bulgarian finance minister is now doing with the subsidies. However, the opposite happens – every few years the fees can be increased, for example by one euro, based on estimates by the media themselves.
For example, a monthly fee of 17.50 euros is paid for each home in Germany, regardless of how many radio and TV receivers it has. And regardless of whether its users watch public television or listen to public radio. Fee financing of the two powerful televisions ARD and ZDF and Deutschlandradio after the Second World War – on the model of the British BBC, aims to make them independent from state intervention and market influences (the share of income from advertising is low due to limited advertising time). With more than 8 billion euros guaranteed annually in fees, German public television and radio stations are in a much more advantageous position than their private competitors, whose advertising revenues are significantly lower.
In Bulgaria, no political force tried to introduce a financing model for BNT and BNR that would guarantee their independence from the state. Either out of reluctance to shake off the reins of the quasi-state media, or out of populist motives – so as not to turn the audience, which is also a potential electorate, against them. There will be few Bulgarians who, after a quarter of a century of transition, will be ready to pay for programs that they may not watch. The golden time for introducing this funding model has passed. BNT has collapsed in viewership and is now far behind its private competitors bTV and Nova TV. BNR, which is even today more independent than BNT, suffers from the “Yankulov” reforms and cannot attract younger viewers.
But, although very late, the debates on the independent financing of BNT and BNR must begin. Despite the state patronage, the two media have nevertheless proven to be of higher quality and more independent than their private competitors. BNT and BNR, however, must break away from the bear hug of the state. If citizens pay directly out of their pockets for strong public media, or another working model is found, they will be able to have much higher demands on them for the quality of information and entertainment offered, for the need for healthy criticism against the authorities, etc. Now the citizens support them again, but through their taxes, which are distributed at the discretion of the state. One year they may be more, another year – less.
Journalists from BNT and BNR should also participate in these debates. But before that, it would be good to seek an account from the managers for their reduced fees.
Dr. Ivo Injov
Media expert
#Journalists #BNR #protest #Minister #Finance
