DISY deputy Andreas Themistocleous yesterday disclosed alleged documents showing a local television station’s offer of €3,000 in exchange for airtime on election shows.
The MP was – partly – making good on a pledge to back up earlier claims that two Limassol-based stations had approached him demanding substantial amounts in exchange for appearances in scheduled programming.
Though Themistocleous had named two stations – Capital and NTV – the purported evidence he unveiled yesterday concerned only the latter.
The Limassol deputy produced a copy of a fax sent to him, dated March 21, 2011, from NTV’s department of marketing and advertising.
The fax contains the station’s offer of a “package for television publicity,” noting that “we hope you will find our proposal interesting for further discussion.”
The €3,000 offer consisted of the following: a 10-minute long televised interview with the candidate to publicise “your daily life, your hobbies, your vision etc.”; two repeats of the same interview; an appearance on a political panel show; coverage of two events attended by the candidate; an appearance on the station’s main news bulletin; and 30 “free” advertising spots to be aired during primetime.
The copy presented yesterday was redacted, the names of the journalists hosting the panel show having been crossed out.
There was an alternative “special offer” worth €2,000 and consisting of 30 spots as paid political advertisements, with 10 more ad spots thrown in free of charge.
CyBC reported last night that NTV denied the allegations.
Themistocleous has also filed a formal complaint to the Broadcasting Authority, to which he sent the unredacted, original version of the NTV fax.
Though he had nothing in writing from Capital, Themistocleous repeated his allegation that he was contacted by a journalist of that station who was “acting on behalf of the owner” and who analysed their offer, which was €7,000.
“But the job could be done with €5,000 as well,” Themistocleous noted, suggesting that the price for publicity was negotiable.
Later in the day, journalists working for Capital released a statement categorically denying ever having made an offer to Themistocleous and questioning the MP’s motives.
“Since 2002 we have done several shows with him, and this is the thanks we get,” the statement added.
Meanwhile the station’s owner Achilleas Demetriou responded by calling the DISY MP a “common sycophant,” and pledged to work with his lawyers to waive Themistocleous’ parliamentary immunity so that a libel suit could be filed against him.
Themistocleous has criticised the Broadcasting Authority for not doing its job, saying the authority should have carried out an investigation on its own instead of waiting for others to supply the evidence.
He further said that as far back as 2007 he had proposed discussion of how airtime is allocated during election periods, and had called on the Broadcasting Authority to draft legislation for better regulation.
He added that if things were done properly, the burden of proof should rest with the television stations, which are obliged – under Broadcasting Authority regulations – to submit full lists of programming with a breakdown of the airtime allotted to parliamentary candidates.
The MP noted also that he would decline to appear on television shows during the election campaign, so as not to give the impression that he was exploiting the airtime issue for his own publicity.
STELIOS Platis, a DISY candidate also running in Limassol, told the Mail he too had similarly been approached by at least one local television station.
“Someone called me on behalf of a channel, telling me that they would like to invite me to a panel show, but in order to do that I also had to advertise with spots on their channel. When that person suggested a figure of €5,000, I exclaimed, to which the person said, ‘don’t worry, we can do it for less, say €3500’.”
According to Platis, when he asked the caller “why did you contact me?”, the journalist said he had to call everybody up – meaning the candidates.
Platis says he turned down the offer; he has not heard from that station since.
“If they had offered me only to pay for ads, I might think about it. But their proposal was different: if you don’t pay, you don’t get any airtime on normal programming.”
“It’s concealed advertisement, of which I want no part of,” said Platis.
And he suggested a practical solution: “During a panel show, a station could signal, by visual or other means, the fact that the politicians have paid to be there. That way, people know that this is not ‘news’ but something else.”
