BRATISLAVA, November 30, (WEBNOVINY) — As of January 1, 2011, Slovakia will have a new public-service institution. On Tuesday, parliament gave the go-ahead to the planned merger of public service Slovak Television and Slovak Radio, enacted in the bill on Television and Radio of Slovakia (RTS). In addition to ruling coalition deputies, also six deputies for the opposition SNS supported the bill, Jana Dubovcova of the SDKU-DS refrained from the vote and the opposition SMER-SD voted against it.
Culture Minister Daniel Krajcer whose department prepared the bill warned that if the merger did not take place, the state-run public TV broadcaster would suffer serious economic damage. The draft was shaped to halt further debt accumulation in STV and improve the quality of its broadcasting. The lawmakers turned down the proposal of SMER-SD deputy Dusan Jarjabek, who wanted the bill returned to its authors to rework it.
Parliament will elect the director of the new media in a public vote instead of a secrete ballot, as originally proposed. Coalition deputies for SaS, SDKU-DS and MOST-HID instigated this proposal for change. The head of the public service institution will earn nine-fold of the average wage in national economy, which was originally to be a seven-fold. Based on a review of the draft, only the RTS Council will be able to ask parliament to dismiss the head of the institution. The bill stipulates that if the director general of the new institution fails to keep the approved obligatory budget indicators, it would be the reason for him/her to go.
Instead of the original 36 members of councils and supervisory commissions, the new institution will have as the supervising body a nine-member Council featuring two economic experts, one law expert and three TV and three radio broadcasting specialists.
The reform in the public service media should last at least three years. It will commence with their merger and culminate with scrapping of the current financing model. The Finance Ministry will coordinate the reform process. One of the first steps will be the cancellation of viewer and listener license fees as of January 1 of 2012. The reform should culminate by moving the new merged institution into a new residence, which should be an efficient building offering joint technology for both TV and radio broadcasting.
The current STV management planned budget with a deficit of EUR 37 million for next year. The Culture Ministry, however expects the merger to save the state at least EUR 1.65 million in 2011.
SITA