A LOT has been written in the press about the CyBC’s deal with Greek TV station Alpha, with most reports suggesting that the state broadcaster had paid well over the odds for the services it had secured. CyBC has agreed to pay Alpha more than £2 million for the right to use its series, variety shows and news reports for a three-year period. Critics have compared this amount with the $350,000 Sigma TV had paid Alpha, over a four-year period, for the right to broadcast some of its shows.
It is highly probable that the CyBC has agreed to buy a much bigger package than Sigma and that Alpha is now charging more for the syndication of its shows. But the cost, which the CyBC board has claimed works out at £140 per half-hour show, is not the real issue. Does the board of the state broadcaster expect to be praised for securing more low-brow shows, at good rates, when there is a surfeit of these on the private stations and cost the taxpayer nothing? Is the role of public broadcasting to compete, head on, with private broadcasters and copy everything they do in order to secure high viewer ratings?
At present there are two private stations, Antenna and Mega, which broadcast most of the output of Greek private stations – they even have the same name as their Greek principals. Do we really need to see the shows of a third Greek TV station as well, at a cost of £2 million to the taxpayer? Is the broadcasting of even more low-brow series and silly variety shows how the state broadcaster plans to offer the public more choice? It is scandalous that the board is using the taxpayer’s money to emulate the private TV stations.
This year, the CyBC will receive a state subsidy of £21 million, but it also competes with the private stations for advertising revenue. Yet, despite receiving all this money, it does not offer viewers anything significantly better than private stations, which cost the taxpayer nothing! The fact is that there is no justification for the CyBC receiving such a huge a subsidy when it offers nothing significantly better, quality-wise, than the private stations. It should not even have been allowed to carry advertising, and deprive the other stations of their only source of income, given the generous subsidy it receives.
The only way the CyBC could justify the subsidy it receives is by broadcasting shows that the private sector does not – high quality productions, plays, educational documentaries, investigative journalism and intelligent chat shows among other things. Thanks to the subsidy, it has the luxury not to strive for high viewer ratings, which usually means appealing to the lowest common denominator. This is the reason public broadcasters receive state subsidies.
As things are, the CyBC cannot justify receiving any subsidy from the taxpayer and the deal with Alpha comes as confirmation of what we already knew – that it is incapable of living up to the billing of public broadcaster.
