"Israel's television sector is in crisis, not only Channel 10," Joseph Maiman, one of the owners of Channel 10, president of Merhav MNF Ltd. and chairman of Ampal-American Israel Corporation (Nasdaq: AMPL; TASE:AMPL) told the Globes' Marketing and Communications Conference at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv today.
He said, "To be precise, if we don't take dramatic measures immediately there will be damage to the industry that we won't be able to repair. In eight years at the station we have spent NIS 1.3 billion. Most has gone on creative systems, productions, and studios."
He added, "There are those who say that we have no met our commitments. What commitments? To pay income tax on losses that we knew about in advance? When you produce television for seven million people you cannot make the same demands as in other countries in the world."
Maiman continued, "We are a small country. The cost of Channel 10 per program should be the same as the BBC? That's absurd, and nothing is changing. We shareholders have invested everything we can invest."
He said, "Now they are beginning to talk about a new tender for Channel 10. In what world are we living? A new tender for what? For the right to lose money? The problem is known by all of us and there isn't a government body that doesn't know what to do. The question is who is going to take the ball and run with it."
Maiman said, "Over the past week there has been a round of talks with the channel's partners Arnon Milchen, Ron Lauder and Rupert Murdoch. They informed me that they will stop injecting money into the station, and my shoulders are not broad enough to carry the station alone. I have no appetite to carry on with sinking money into it. With great regret, in the name of the partners, and in my name, we are discontinuing with the cash injections this month."
He said, "Yesterday I though about what I just told you and I had butterflies in my stomach. I did not have an easy night. Despit that it's been eight years of my life and I am worried about the employees. What on earth will happen if we return to the situation where there is one government channel and one commercial channel?"
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 13, 2009
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