Portuguese Chafe as Government Examines Privatizing Broadcaster
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — For news on the economic turmoil that has gripped their country, many people in Portugal tune in to RTP, the public television and radio broadcaster. Now it looks like RTP could itself become a victim of the crisis. Seeking to plug the gaping holes in its finances, the Portuguese government last month floated the idea of shutting down or privatizing most of RTP, which runs two of the country’s four main television channels. The proposal rattled the European broadcasting sector, where many people consider public TV and radio companies an essential feature of the media landscape. Whether the proposal will be adopted remains unclear. It is only one of several ideas that are being discussed to cut the cost of funding RTP; other options would be less radical. But opposition to privatization has been swift and loud, inside and outside Portugal. The board of RTP resigned in protest. The European Broadcasting Union, a group that represents European public TV and radio companies, wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho: “To entrust management of a valuable national asset to commercial interests — a step unprecedented anywhere in the world — would put at risk the reputation earned by RTP since 1974,” when the so-called Carnation Revolution ended the longstanding Portuguese dictatorship. “Commercial and public interests would be mixed and pluralism endangered. Citizens could lose a trusted reference point forever,” it concluded. Nuno Lopes, a Portuguese actor, was more blunt, posting a message on an Internet microblogging service that read, “Today I woke up ashamed to be Portuguese.” Actually, Portugal is not the only European country that is scaling back its commitment to public broadcasters, or moving in other ways to restructure these operations. In Britain, the BBC, often held up as the model public broadcaster because of its political independence, its quality programming, its freedom from advertising and its technological innovations, is in the process of cutting its spending 20 percent over five years, following an agreement with the Conservative-led coalition government that took power in 2010. In the deal, the BBC agreed to take on the funding of the World Service and certain other operations that had previously been financed by separate government grants. In France, the government of former President Nicolas Sarkozy restructured the public television company, moving to reduce advertising and replacing the lost funding with revenue from a new tax on telecommunications companies. But the European Commission has objected to that tax, leaving the new government of President François Hollande with the headache of figuring out how to fill the looming gap in the budget at France Télévisions. In Spain, too, the government recently moved to phase out advertising on public TV, seeking to bolster ad revenue at commercial broadcasters, which have suffered heavily during the crisis. Elsewhere, especially in the Balkans, public broadcasters face serious cuts. Many public broadcasters in Northern Europe, including the BBC, get the vast majority of their funding from a license fee on television-owning households. Even with the new financial commitments that the BBC has taken on, this model has generally been more resilient during the financial crisis than the funding mechanisms for southern European public broadcasters, which tend to rely on a mix of sources. RTP, for example, currently gets more than half of its funding from a license fee, which is expected to generate about €140 million, or $180 million, this year — less than €30 per household. But RTP is also getting about €70 million directly from the government, and a smaller amount in advertising revenue. The board said it had already reduced costs in a variety of ways, paring its annual budget to €235 million. The government, the departing board said in a statement, wants spending to fall a further €55 million, a reduction that can be achieved only “by restructuring the portfolio of activities and services offered by the company and in addition by reducing the number of staff.” In early August, the Portuguese news media reported that the government was considering closing or privatizing the organization’s second television channel, RTP2, which features arts and cultural programming, as a way to achieve the cuts. Late last month, António Borges, a consultant to the government, said in a television interview that more radical options were being weighed, including the shutdown of RTP2 and the privatization of the flagship channel, RTP1, which focuses on news and entertainment. Under this option, RTP1 would be run by a private company under a concession from the government; license fee funding of the privatized channel would be maintained. Given that the government’s savings under such a plan would be modest, opponents of privatization see a political angle to the privatization proposal, saying it might be a way for Mr. Passos Coelho to silence a meddlesome critic. “RTP’s news operation has sometimes been more independent than the government would like,” said Giacomo Mazzone, head of institutional relations at the broadcasting union. Perhaps mindful of the international opprobrium that followed recent moves by the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, to increase his control over that country’s media, the government of Portugal has argued that any restructuring of RTP is driven by financial motives, as Portugal seeks to bring its public spending into line with the demands of international lenders. After the outcry that followed Mr. Borges’s airing of the idea of shutting down RTP2 and privatizing RTP1, the government urged calm, insisting that no decisions had been made. Analysts say it is unclear when the situation will be resolved. A new RTP board is set to take over this week. Amid the uncertainty over the government’s plans, commercial rivals of RTP, which have long complained that the public broadcaster does too much, have proposed their own alternatives, under which they would take over some public service functions. What does seem clear is that Portuguese viewers will face deeper cuts than, say, their counterparts in Britain, where the BBC says it plans to preserve existing channels and radio stations while cutting back on stars’ salaries and showing more reruns. “The situation in Portugal is extreme, because it surely means some services will be lost,” said Tim Westcott, senior analyst at Screen Digest, a research firm in London. |