WATCH: ONE TV Will Die Unless We Change Our Business Model, Party TV Chairman Warns
ONE Productions executive chairperson Jason Micallef has warned that the Labour Party’s TV station will “die” unless it changes its model to adapt to the changing global media landscape.
“We [Maltese society] created these problems ourselves by virtue of the progress of society,” Micallef said during a recent interview with Fabian Demicoli on Malta Daily.
“There weren’t other TV stations when ONE TV set up [in 1994]. There was a whole furore, everyone was watching us, we were popular and we were doing well, but then social media started popping up bit by bit.”
“Print media killed itself because newspapers all went online. We [ONE] obviously need to find a direction on how to change our broadcasting level and unless we do that, we’re going to die.”
“It’s so clear. However, we keep digging our heads in the sand when it comes to certain decisions.”
ONE Productions hasn’t published its accounts since 2010, when it reported a loss of €507,479 and total debt of €2.7 million.
Its auditors RSM Malta warned that the TV station’s conditions cast “significant doubt” about its ability to continue, although it noted that its year-end loss had dropped by around €200,000 from the previous year and steps were being taken to address the issues.
Media.Link, the company which owns the PN’s TV station NET, last filed its accounts in 2003, when it recorded a loss of Lm146,753 (around €341,840) and a total debt of roughly €8.4 million.
Both Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition Leader Bernard Grech have repeatedly pledged to sort out their party TV stations’s situations, which is in breach of company law, but without giving any timelines.
The lack of transparency and accountability by party media is one of the reasons Lovin Malta filed a court case that challenges the constitutionality of political broadcasting on political party media.
The result of a crowdfunding campaign by the online show Kaxxaturi, Lovin Malta’s case is asking the courts to declare as unconstitutional a proviso to the Broadcasting Act which allows the Broadcasting Authority to turn a blind eye to the Constitution’s demand for impartiality in TV news.
Cover photo: Left: ONE TV chairperson Jason Micallef, Right: ONE TV host Karl Stagno Navarra
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