The director-general of the EBU has criticized European politicians that have used financing in to exercise control over public service.
In a panel session at NEM Zagreb, Noel Curran said there was significant political pressure over broadcasters.
“They are becoming much more direct in how they exert that control. Funding issues often accompany this type of pressure because funding is frequently used as leverage: “You do this, or you don’t get your funding.””
During the panel Nina Obuljen Koržinek, Croatia’s Minister Of Culture and Media promised that the government was looking for a ‘third way’ between a licence fee and a government settlement.
This led Natalija Gorscak, President of the Board, RTV Slovenia to observe that she would like to ‘steal’ any third way proposed in Croatia, given that her own government had held the licence fee for 12 years. “We have survived right wing attacks on public media, financially exhausted, but now looking to work within a new law,” she said.
Curran outlined the various options open to governments of public service media, such as subscription, proposed by Boris Johnson’s UK government, but which had now fallen away; the taxation model used in Finland and Sweden and the household charge adopted in Germany. “We don’t pick one, but the state budget is most risky, once you have a government that doesn’t interfere and then that government changes.”
Robert Šveb, General Director, Croatian Radiotelevision, said HRT was maintaining a good connection with its audience and maintaining a high reach, but pressures were coming from the different behaviors of the audience and he too was looking toward new financing models.
