Romania: Changing tunes

Low-brow entertainment and “non-event” news dominate public-service broadcasting in Romania. Reform is underway, but deplorably slow, says Manuela Preoteasa in Transitions Online.

As a leader of the political opposition before the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2004, Traian Basescu was not welcomed on Romanians’ television screens. Kept off the air when he was too clever, shown on TV mostly when he said something dull, Basescu was even sent home by a private television studio from a debate when his rival in the presidential run-offs, then-Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, failed to turn up. Despite such experiences, Basescu won the presidential race in December 2004 and it is perhaps such experiences that prompted Basescu, a former sailor, to put media on his reform agenda after he took the country’s helm and to promise an environment friendlier to independent media, especially television.

Subsequent content research carried out by the Bucharest-based media NGO Media Monitoring Agency (AMP) revealed the extent of political bias during the campaign, showing that all of Romania’s major television stations refrained from criticizing leaders of the then government.

It is unbalanced coverage that is the main reason why in recent years the number of Romanians saying they do not trust the broadcast media has increased by 10 percent. The principal factors why both private and public-service operators have behaved in partisan fashion are tough commercial and political pressures, pressures exacerbated under the former government of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). In recent years, programming has become increasingly tabloid in style and ownership has been concentrated in the hands of a few players, many of them unknown. Television has become a tool to protect various political and business interests. These are the main findings of a recent EUMAP report on television launched in Romania on 28 November.

To read the article in full, visit the Transitions Online website.