Yesterday, the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee rejected the proposal to postpone Channel 10's debt repayment to the government by eight votes against five. The TV station is supposed to repay the debt by the end of 2011.
After MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) was removed from the heated discussion following persistent outbursts, Channel 10 CEO Yossi Varshavsky told the committee members, "How do they say in the 'Eretz Nehederet' satirical TV show, "I am appealing to your heart" when I ask you to postpone the debt repayment by one year. I am emphasizing that we are asking to delay the debt repayment, not erase it."
At the end of the meeting, MK Amir Peretz (Labor) said, "This is the first time that one journalist (Raviv Druker) has been valued at NIS 80 million!" Channel 10 owes the government NIS 60 million, however the government owes Channel 10 NIS 16 million, such that the latter actually owes only NIS 44 million.
Even before the meeting began, party discipline was imposed on Likud and Yisrael Beitenu Knesset members sitting on the committee (5 out of 13 MKs) to oppose delaying the debt repayment. Committee chairman MK Carmel Shama-HaCohen (Likud) said at the beginning of the meeting, "We are not voting whether to shut down Channel 10 - we are discussing whether to delay the debt repayment. We need to remember that the people that stand behind Channel 10 are not bankrupt - they are wealthy people. There are still two months left before the repayment is due, and solutions can be found during these two months. New shareholders can be found.
The clerks were changed
Senior executives at Channel 10 told "Globes" after the meeting, "One conspicuous aspect of the discussion is that Minister of Communications Moshe Kahlon (Likud) was not present." They say that the decision taken in the Finance Committee meeting was political, and that it came down from above and has nothing to do with professional matters.
"Up until three days ago, Ministry of Finance officials agreed with us regarding the postponement," senior executives at Channel 10 told "Globes". "MK Ronnie Bar-On (Kadima) said that he knows from first-hand knowledge that Ministry of Finance officials changed their voting stance after receiving a directive from above to do so."
"We would never have brought up the proposal to postpone the debt repayment date if we had known the Minister of Finance did not support it. Ministry of Finance representative Ofer Margalit read the letter Minister Kahlon sent as if he had seen a ghost; a copy of this laconic letter was also sent to us explaining why the repayment date should not be delayed."
Channel 10 declined to comment. Channel 2 CEO Menashe Samira said in response to recent developments, "There is no doubt that an open public debate should be held to discuss the media's independence and political influences on it. In this case, the issue was the a technical delay of a debt repayment from three concessions, which resulted from a change in the law that set the date for transferring the licenses to 2013 instead of 2012 as originally set."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 9, 2011
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011