[Swprograms] RSI: Saved, but for how long?

[Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From http://www.slovensko.com/news/2326:

Broadcasts will continue, but left unstated is which government
department will fund them.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  USA

---

 Radio Slovakia International saved

Thu 21 Jul 05, 08:12  •  RSI

Last week, the public broadcaster announced its intention to close
down its short-wave foreign language service and to downsize the staff
of the radio station by 84 people. The management decided to take this
radical step to cut costs. By this step it intended to compensate
revenue shortfalls in concession payments and payments from the state
budget. Due to the restrictive measures taken by general director of
Slovak Radio Jaroslav Reznik, the Radio Council, a radio supervisory
body, was summoned for a special meeting on Tuesday. Its members
appointed by Parliament have agreed to bind the director to continue
the shortwave broadcasting of Radio Slovakia International.

Shortwave broadcasting will not be stopped, Jaroslav Reznik confirmed
for Radio Slovakia International. Nevertheless, he added he could not
say for how long this status will be possible. According to him, it is
now up to the state authorities to express clearly whether they are
interested in a foreign broadcast service.

The supervisory body of Slovak radio agrees with the General Director
in the point that the foreign service should be financed from the
state budget not from the concession fees. That is why the financial
sources should be provided by the government. Nevertheless, neither
the Culture Ministry nor the Foreign Ministries seem to be interested
in allocating sufficient means from their budgets. The European
standard is to support a foreign radio broadcast from the budget of
the Foreign Ministry.

The law dealing with Slovak radio states that finance should be
provided from the state budget for foreign service broadcasting.
However the current Culture Minister questions this part of the law.

Due to an allegedly unclear interpretation of lines defining financing
foreign broadcasting, Culture Minister Frantisek Toth has initiated a
legal analysis of the respective lines. The position of state
authorities leaves the financing foreign broadcast on the reserves of
the Slovak radio. Zuzana Mistrikova, the head of the media section at
the Culture Ministry.

The Slovak Republic represented by the government thinks it is
something that the Slovak Republic needs to have and to have it in
high quality and then to decide how it will be financed and if it will
be financed directly from the state budget or if the system of
financing of Slovak Radio will be so well managed that it will be able
to finance broadcasting like this.

Despite the fact that the foreign broadcast on short waves will not
stop, there will be restrictive measures taken in Slovak Radio.
According to the Radio Council, these cannot be affecting the
production and broadcasting of the program. The supervisory body
consists of members appointed by the parliament. The head of the
council Michal Dzurjanin concluded that now they have to wait for
Parliament and the Government to solve the current deficit of over EUR
8 million for the Radio.

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