Govt told to quickly rescue `TVRI'
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Members of the House of Representatives (DPR) urged the government on Monday to rescue state-owned television station TVRI from bankruptcy, arguing that the state needed public television.
"I feel really sad knowing that TVRI is on the brink of bankruptcy. It's an emergency situation that the government must deal with quickly," member of House Commission I for communication and information affairs Djoko Susilo told The Jakarta Post.
Fellow Commission I member Paulus Widiyanto urged the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises to complete TVRI's corporate transition process straight away.
He also told local administrations to help finance TVRI's stations in their respective provinces.
The government decided in April 2002 to change TVRI from a social service corporation to a limited liability company. As a result, TVRI would no longer receive funds directly from the state budget but through the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises (BUMN), after completing the process to become a company, which included letting the office appoint TVRI's board of directors.
However, the office has not thus far completed that task, while the Ministry of Finance has stopped allocating funds to TVRI.
Consequently, several TVRI stations in provinces such as Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Lampung, Bengkulu and Central Kalimantan stopped operating since last October, while stations in Central Java, North Sumatra and West Sumatra are all on the verge of bankruptcy.
Djoko said that his commission had discussed steps to urge the government to inject funds to rescue TVRI. "We've been formulating a letter to the Minister of Finance, urging him to disburse money from the reserve funds in the state budget."
Ade Armando, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia's communications department, voiced a similar opinion.
"Every country should have its own public television that is financially supported by the government. Such public television should convey, unlike TVRI's disappointing current market- oriented programs, educational and cultural programs," Ade said.
He cited countries in Western Europe as examples. "They allocate money for public television stations from revenue sources such as TV and radio taxes, sponsorships from companies and donations," he said.
As for TVRI, he acknowledged that the state could not be the sole source of funds, while citizens were reluctant to make any contributions because TVRI's programs were not popular.
"So, as stipulated in the Broadcasting Law, commercials could be one of TVRI's sources of finance, besides donations and the state budget," he said.
Although he supported the existence of TVRI as public television, he said that TVRI should change its programs to something educational.
"TVRI should provide the benchmark for good television programs, while KPI should be the one that monitors the quality of its programs," said Ade, referring to the Indonesian Broadcasting Committee.