PTV Called to Serve the Public, not Interests

The XI South Caucasus OSCE conference "Public television in the digital age" completed in Tbilisi yesterday adopted the recommendations of 19 points for governments and institutions of public broadcasting in the region.

The recommendations were agreed after discussions by the participants of the conference, and the final revised version of the document will be circulated shortly.

The first basic point of the recommendation states that "public service broadcasters (PTV) should serve the citizens, not the government, political forces, commercial or other group interests."

Recommendations also include issues of transparency of funding, balance programs, the transition to digital broadcasting, greater use of the Internet and other mobile platforms, strengthening of public control over the PTV.

The conference was attended by representatives of the expert community and the media of the EU countries and the former Soviet countries. They discussed the challenges and strategic choices in an era of transition to digital broadcasting, the position and prospects of public broadcasting in the South Caucasus, values and content, legal and financial issues of PTV.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of Expression, Dunja Mijatovic, addressing the participants, noted the need to achieve "real public service broadcasting to the public and at the expense of society."

Public TV was created in Azerbaijan in accordance with the commitments to the Council of Europe and began broadcasting in summer 2005. PTV inspired hopes that it would reflect different views of the public and provide objective coverage of events. But the results of various studies have shown that PTV has not met the expectations of the public. -0-