Croatia's HRT to get new boss...sometime

Legal uncertainty about procedure for replacing PSB boss. So much for the quality of the draftsmanship of media legislation, the object of much comment from EU 'experts'. (Of course, the idea of eliminating interpretative uncertainty is chimeric).

New CEO for Norwegian broadcaster

Board of public broadcaster NRK names Hans-Tore Bjerkaas as new top executive. Bjerkass succeeds John G. Bernander, who resigned in October of last year.

France 2, director of programmes sacked

[Thanks to Michael for the link] : Jean Baptiste Jouy sacked as director of programmes for France 2. Culture shock at moving from Canal+ a factor.

Weekly round-up: BBC, RTVE, RAI

Three items this week, in descending order of importance, increasing order of triviality:

1. The cost of a BBC licence fee was set for the next six years. The fee will increase 3% for the next two years, and 2% for the four following years. The figures roughly follow projections for CPI, but there is no inflation link. The BBC is annoyed, because they think the settlement is below RPI (which is below industry-specific inflation for broadcasting, which may be subject to Baumol's disease), and because they thought they would get extra for spearheading the switch to digital terrestrial. They do (a £200m side-payment), but the DCMS is sure that there are cost-savings to be made. [Historical data on licence fee]
2. RTVE revealed its new executive line-up. According to Formula TV, Director-General Javier Pons has kept Fran Llorente and Pablo Carrasco as directors of News & Current Affairs and Content respectively, but Carrasco loses control over Programming, which goes to Carlos Fernandez. The RTVE union in Madrid opposes against Carrasco's nomination, claiming he favours external production far too much.
3. RAI councillors complain when people criticise them. The five right-wing members of the Rai board - Urbani, Petroni, Bianchi Clerici, Malgieri, and Staderini - denounced the "campaign to delegitimate their action" - roughly, criticism that they acted in a partial manner damaging to the company when they appointed Alfredo Meocci as Director-General in violation of rules of conflict of interest. One interesting tid-bit: the CdA had wanted to give Siniscalco [Minister of Finance at the time, and thus sole shareholder] a list of names; Siniscalco refused and said he only wanted one. Good on 'im
   

Rehearsals for departures

One departure, one arrival, and one return from the brink:

1. Michael Grade left the BBC. The decision was broken, as I understand it, in the Telegraph, and confirmed this morning. No news yet on salary, but it may top £2m. No news yet on how how he will be replaced. A former surgeon, acting Chair Chitra Bharucha looks unlikely to step up to the top seat. I suggest the BBC will go from someone outside of the media who is happy with a regulatory rule. A former financial regulator, for example, would be a wonderful touch in the run up to the licence fee settlement.
2. Luis Férnandez was designated President of RTVE. In a boost for the broadcaster, Fernandez was nominated with the agreement of both the main parties. The remaining nominations to the council will be made on Monday. The rapid turnaround - one month of inter-regnum - augurs well for RTVE's future governability; though the demand of the United Left and nationalist parties to be represented on the 12 member party may still mean that nominees are closely identified with particular parties.
3. Silvio Berlusconi collapsed at a campaign rally before recovering. Rai quickly apologised for a comedy sketch mocking Berlusconi. Having not seen the sketch, I can't comment on whether it was in bad taste or not. I suspect it was (it would be hard for it to be otherwise), but Rai has certainly done well to applaud fulsomely and quickly.
   

News from Flanders

Variety has the most ridiculously over-blown style. Here it describes the sacking of VRT CEO Tony Mary after the Flemish government got pissed off with Mary's sale of a popular TV show to a pay-per-view competitor. Piet Van Roe replaces Mary.

Directors-General of European PSBs

Measures of central bank independence have sometimes used the rate of turnover of Central Bank Governors as an indicator of de facto independence (which, it turns out, is reasonably strongly correlated with de jure independence). How does it work for PSBs? The following table gives the average time in post of a number of PSB Directors-General.

Public broadcaster	Average tenure of DG
NRK [Norway]	9 years 8 months
ABC [Australia]	8 years 10 months
YLE [Finland]	8 years 6 months
DR [Denmark]	7 years 2 months
BBC [UK]	6 years 8 months
CBC [Canada]	5 years 4 months
ORF [Austria]	5 years 1 month
NHK [Japan]	4 years 6 months
Rai [Italy]	2 years 10 months
PTV [Poland]	2 years 10 months
France Télévisions/ORTF	2 years 6 months
Czech TV	1 year 11 months
MTV [Hungary]	1 year
RTVE [Spain]	11 months

Norway

List of Broadcasting Chiefs of Norwegian PSB NRK [from Wikipedia]

• Kaare Fostervoll (1949–1962)
• Hans Jacob Ustvedt (1962–1972)
• Torolf Elster (1972–1981)
• Bjartmar Gjerde (1981–1989)
• Einar Førde (1989–2001)
• John G. Bernander (15th July 2001–2007)

(According to his Wikipedia entry, Bernander is a freemason. A nice compliment to Sandro Curzi's remarks about freemasons in Rai, no?)
Average tenure of DG: 9 years 8 months.
Percentage of government changes followed within six months by change of Director-General (Cukierman political vulnerability index): 3/21 = 14.29% [Korvald, Bruntland (I), Syse governments possibly followed by changes, though the timing may be wrong with no more precise dates than these]

Australia

Directors-General and Managing Directors of ABC:

1. Sir Charles Moses (1935–65)
2. Sir Talbot Duckmanton (1965–82)
3. Keith Jennings (1982-83)
4. Geoffrey Whitehead (1983–86)
5. David Hill (1986–94)
6. Brian Johns (1994–99 )
7. Jonathan Shier (??/03/2000–31/12/2001);
   
8. Russell Balding (29/05/2002–20/03/2006); left before the end of his five-year contract
   
9. Mark Scott (22/05/2006–present)

Average tenure of DGs, excluding most recent: 8 years 10 months (5 years 9 months if one counts only managing directors)
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 1/11 = 9.09% [Hawke government followed by appointment of Geoffrey Whitehead]

Finland

List of Directors-General of Finnish PSB YLE [from Wikipedia]:

• Hella Wuolijoki 1945–1949
• Einar Sundström 1950–1964
• Eino S. Repo 1965–1969
• Erkki Raatikainen 1970–1979
• Sakari Kiuru 1980–1989
• Reino Paasilinna 1990–1994
• Arne Wessberg 1994–2005
• Mikael Jungner 2005–

Average tenure of DG, excluding most recent: 8 years 6 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 3/35 = 8.57% (counting changes of Prime Minister; Kekkonen (I), Virolainen, Koivisto (II) governments followed by changes); 1/6 = 16.67% (counting changes of President; Ahtisaari presidency followed by appointment of Wessberg).

Denmark

List of Directors-General of Danmarks Radio [from DR website]

• Hans Juul Sølvhøj 1961 - 1964
• Erik Carlsen 1964 - 1967
• Hans Juul Sølvhøj 1967 - 1976
• Laurits Bindsløv 1976 - 1985
• Hans Jørgen Jensen 1985 - 1994
• Christian Nissen 1994 - 2004
• Kenneth Plummer 2005 -

Average tenure of DG, excluding most recent: 7 years 2 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 0.

United Kingdom

BBC Directors-General (post-war period only):

• Sir William Haley (31st March 1944-30th September 1952)
• Sir Ian Jacob (1st December 1952- 31st December 1959)
• Sir Hugh Greene (1st January 1960-31st March 1969)
• Sir Charles Curran (1st April 1969-1977)
• Sir Ian Trethowan (1977-1982)
• Alasdair Milne (1982-29/1/1987)
• Sir Michael Checkland (27/2/1987-??/12/1992); stepped down two months early after Birt's appointment named well in advance
  
• Sir John Birt (??/12/1992-2000)
• Greg Dyke (01/04/2000 - January 29, 2004)
• Mark Thompson (June 22, 2004 - )

Average tenure of DGs, excluding most recent: 6 years 8 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 0.

Canada

Presidents of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, post-war period only:

• 1945–1958: A. Davidson Dunton
• 1958–1967: J. Alphonse Ouimet
• 1968–1972: George F. Davidson
• 1972–1975: Laurent A. Picard
• 1975–1982: A.W. Johnson
• 1982–1989: Pierre Juneau
• 1989: William T. Armstrong
• 1989–1994: Gérard Veilleux
• 1994–1995: Anthony S. Manera
• 31st March 1995–1999: Perrin Beatty
• November 1999–Present: Robert Rabinovitch

Average tenure of Presidents, excluding most recent: 5 years, 4 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 3/13 = 23.07% (Diefenbaker, Trudeau (I) and Chrétien governments followed by changes).

Austria

List of Directors-General of Austrian PSB ORF [from Wikipedia]:

• 1960–1967: Josef Scheidl
• 1967–1974: Gerd Bacher
• 1974–1978: Otto Oberhammer
• 1978–1986: Gerd Bacher
• 1986–1990: Thaddäus Podgorski
• 1990–1994: Gerd Bacher
• 1994–1998: Gerhard Zeiler
• 1998–2001: Gerhard Weis
• 2002–31/12/2006: Monika Lindner
• 01/01/2007- : Alexander Wrabetz

Average tenure of DG, excluding most recent: 5 years 1 month.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 1/7 = 14.28% (Vranitzky government followed by appointment of Podgorski).

Japan

NHK Presidents [Kaicho], post-Occupation period only [from Wikipedia, Ellis Krauss' Broadcasting Politics in Japan]:

1. 高野岩三郎　1946年4月26日～1949年4月5日; completed a three year term before introduction of the 1950 Broadcasting Act
   
2. 古垣鐵郎　1949年5月30日～1956年6月13日; two three-year terms; prolonged slightly by passage of the 1950 Act
   
3. 永田清　1956年6月13日～1957年11月3日; Kiyoshi died in office
   
4. 野村秀雄　1958年1月14日～1960年10月17日; Nomura appointed late after LDP factional disagreement
   
5. 阿部眞之助　1960年10月17日～1964年7月9日;
   
6. 前田義徳　1964年7月17日～1973年7月16日; three-term President, Maeda resigned after patron Satō died
   
7. 小野吉郎　1973年7月17日～1976年9月4日; resigned two months into a second three year term
   
8. 坂本朝一　1976年9月21日～1982年7月2日; two quiet three-year terms
   
9. 川原正人　1982年7月3日～1988年7月2日; two three year terms
   
10. 池田芳蔵　1988年7月3日～1989年4月4日; Ikeda resigned on grounds off ill-health
    
11. 島桂次　1989年4月12日～1991年7月16日; Shima resigned after annoying certain LDP factions
    
12. 川口幹夫　1991年7月31日～1997年7月30日; two quiet three year terms
    
13. 海老沢勝二　1997年7月31日～2005年1月25日; resigned after corruption scandals
    
14. 橋本元一　2005年1月25日～現在

Average tenure of Presidents, excluding most recent: 4 years, 6 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 1/29 = 3.44% (Ikeda government followed by appointment of Shinosuke Abe).
Average percentage of tenure completed: 87.78%

Italy

Directors-General of RAI:

Salvino Sernesi	1949	1953
Giovan Battista Vicentini	1954	1955
Rodolfo Arata	(June) 1956	1960
Ettore Bernabei	January 5, 1961	September 18, 1974
Michele Principe	May 23, 1975	January 25, 1977
Giuseppe Glisenti	January 26, 1977	June 17, 1977
Pierantonino Bertè	July 12, 1977	June 18, 1980
Villy De Luca	June 19, 1980	July 21, 1982
Biagio Agnes	July 29, 1982	February 1, 1990
Gianni Pasquarelli	February 5, 1990	July 23, 1993
Gianni Locatelli	July 23, 1993	August 3, 1994
Gianni Billia	August 3, 1994	December 31, 1994
Raffaele Minicucci	January 16, 1995	February 29, 1996
Aldo Materia [1]	March 6, 1996	July 15, 1996
Franco Iseppi	July 15, 1996	February 8, 1998
Pier Luigi Celli	February 9, 1998	February 17, 2000
Pier Luigi Celli [2]	February 17, 2000	February 9, 2001
Claudio Cappon	February 9, 2001	March 19, 2002
Agostino Saccà	March 19, 2002	March 27, 2003
Flavio Cattaneo	March 27, 2003	August 5, 2005
Alfredo Meocci	August 5, 2005	June 20, 2006
Claudio Cappon	June 22, 2006	present

Average tenure of Directors-General, excluding most recent: 2 years 10 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 8/36 = 22.22% (Fanfani (I), Fanfani (III), Moro (II), Andreotti (II), Andreotti (III), Ciampi, Berlusconi (I), Prodi (I), Prodi (II) governments followed by changes).

Poland

Presidents of Telewizja Polska (PTV):

1. Wiesław Walendziak (Jan 1994 - Apr 1996)
2. Ryszard Miazek (Apr 1996 - June 1998)
3. Robert Kwiatkowski (July 1998 - Jan 2004)
4. Jan Dworak (Feb 2004 - May 2006)
5. Bronislaw Wildstein (May 2006 - )

Average tenure of Presidents, excluding most recent: 2 years 10 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 2/9 = 22.22% (Pawlak (II), Cimoszewicz governments followed by changes).

France

Presidents of France Télévisions (and before, joint presidents of France 2 and France 3, and Presidents of ORTF):

• Jacques-Bernard Dupont : 27/06/1964 - 7/06/1968
• Jean-Jacques de Bresson : 7/06/1968 - 13/05/1972
• Arthur Conte : 14/07/1972 - 23/10/1973
• Marceau Long : 23/10/1973 - 31/12/1974
• Jean Cazeneuve : 06/01/1975 - 1978 [President, TF1]
  
• Jean-Louis Guillaud : 1978 - 06/1981
• Jacques Boutet : 06/1981 - 31/08/1982
• Michel May : 31/08/1982 - 14/07/1983
• Hervé Bourges : 14/07/1983 - 06/04/1987
• Francis Bouygues : 06/04/1987 - 23/02/1988
• Patrick Le Lay : depuis le 23/02/1988
• Philippe Guilhaume : 10/08/1989 - 07/09/1992 [Presidents, France 2, France 3]
  
• Hervé Bourges : 07/09/1992 - 13/12/1993
• Jean-Pierre Elkabbach : 13/12/1993 - 06/06/1996
• Xavier Gouyou Beauchamps : 06/06/1996 - 28/05/1999
• Marc Tessier : 28/05/1999 - 06/07/2005
• Patrick de Carolis : depuis le 06/07/2005

Average tenure of President/DG of major public channel/group, excluding most recent: 2 years 6 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 5/16 = 31.25% (Messmer, Chirac (I), Mauroy, Bérégovoy, de Villepin governments followed by changes).

Czech Republic

Česká televize, Directors-General:

Ivo Mathé	1. January 1992	1. April 1998
Jakub Puchalský	1. April 1998	31.january 2000
Dušan Chmelíček	1. February 2000	21. December 2000
Jiří Hodač	22. December 2000	11. January 2001
Inter-rim period	11. January 2001	9. February 2001
Jiří Balvín	9 February 2001	27. November 2002
Petr Klimeš (inter-rim director))	27. November 2002	18. July 2003
Jiří Janeček	19. July 2003	(current)

Average tenure of Directors-General, excluding most recent: 1 year 11 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 2/7 = 28.57% (Tosovsky', Spidla governments followed by changes).

Hungary

Magyar Televizio, Presidents [from EUMAP]

1. István Nemeskürty (January–April 1990),
2. Albert Szalacsi Tóth (April–August 1990),
3. Elemér Hankiss (August 1990–January 1993),
4. Gábor Nahlik (January 1993–July 1994),
5. Tibor Szilárd (July 1994),
6. Ádám Horváth (July 1994–December 1995),
7. Ferenc Székely (January–September 1996),
8. István Peták (October 1996–January 1998),
9. Lóránt Horvát (January 1998–May 1999),
10. Zsolt Szabó László (May 1999–July 2001),
11. Károly Mendreczky (July 2001–July 2002),
12. Imre Ragáts (July 2002–December 2003),
13. György Pinke (January 2004–February 2004),
14. Zoltán Rudi (March 2004–

Average tenure of Presidents, excluding most recent: 1 year
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 4/6 = 66.67% (Antall, Boross, Horn, Medgyessy governments followed by changes).

Spain

Directors-General of RTVE:

• Fernando Castedo (Jan '81 to Oct '81)
• Carlos Robles (Oct '81 to July '82)
• Eugenio Nasarre (Jul '82 to Dec '82)
• Jose-Maria Calvino (Dec '82 to Oct '86);
  
• Pilar Miro (Oct '86 to Jan '89);
  
• Luis Solana (Jan '89 to Feb '90);
  
• Jordi Garcia (Feb '90 to May '96)
  
• Mónica Ridruejo (May '96 to Feb '97)
  
• Fernando López-Amor (Feb '97 to Nov '98)
• Pío Cabanillas (Nov '98 to May '00);
  
• Javier González (May '00 to July '02)
  
• José Antonio Sánchez Domínguez (July '02 to April '04);
• Carmen Caffarel (April 2004 onwards)

Average tenure of DG, excluding most recent: 11 months.
Cukierman political vulnerability index: 4 / 5 = 80% (all government changes since Suárez followed by changes, except change in 1993 between majority and minority PSOE governments).

Business as usual

Whilst the BBC struggles to clarify its position on news-readers wearing the veil, Rai nominates a number of office-holders. In short, business as usual. For completeness' sake, here are the nominees:

• Luigi Meloni (Unione, allegedly) - vice-director, HR;
• Alessandro Zucca (CdL, allegedly) - vice-director, HR;
• Valerio Fiorespino - vice-director, TV Resources;
• Giancarlo d'Arma - vice-director, Acquisitions

I continue to wonder where journalists get alleged party affiliations of Rai employees. It seems to be a sort of common knowledge open to those in a certain field. Certainly, I doubt any of these individuals are card-carrying members of any party; affiliations seem to imputed based on friendships and career progression. For example - Valerio Fiorespino's career did well under the left (until 2001 he was director of Human Resources); it did poorly under the right. Therefore, runs the logic, he must be of the left. A very slender basis for such a judgement.

New Director-General for Sveriges Television

Eva Hamilton, SVT's Head of Fiction, was last Friday appointed Director General of the Swedish public broadcaster. With experience in SVT's News department, she comes to SVT after having worked for Aftonbladet ("independent social democrat") and Svenska Dagbladet ("independent, conservative") [Source for these judgements: BBC Media monitoring].

Past appointments in RTVE

Now that RTVE Director-General Carmen Caffarel is calling on politicians to name high-quality independent members of RTVE's future Board, I thought it might be useful to see whether, in the past, Directors-General have frequently been tossed out by over-mighty boards. I finally found this list of previous Directors-General. Let's have a look:

1. Fernando Castedo (Jan '81 to Oct '81)
2. Carlos Robles (Oct '81 to July '82)
3. Eugenio Nasarre (Jul '82 to Dec '82)
4. Jose-Maria Calvino (Dec '82 to Oct '86); appointed after PSOE victory of Dec '82;
   
5. Pilar Miro (Oct '86 to Jan '89); appointed four months after election of June '86;
   
6. Luis Solana (Jan '89 to Feb '90);
   
7. Jordi Garcia (Feb '90 to May '96); survived election of 1993; appointed four months after election of (late) October 1989;
   
8. Mónica Ridruejo (May '96 to Feb '97); appointed two months after PP victory of 1996;
   
9. Fernando López-Amor (Feb '97 to Nov '98)
10. Pío Cabanillas (Nov '98 to May '00);
    
11. Javier González (May '00 to July '02); appointed two months after PP victory of 2000;
    
12. José Antonio Sánchez Domínguez (July '02 to April '04);
    
13. Carmen Caffarel (Apr '04 till present); appointed one month after PSoE victory in 2004 elections;
    

Thirteen directors-general in fifteen years. An almost perfect "political vulnerability score' - Alex Cukierman's index for the likelihood that an office will change hands within six months of a change in government (the exception may be Jordi Garcia, who survived the transition from a majority PSOE government to a minority government). A hard tradition to break?

RSS feed about the BBC

I've only just noticed that the BBC Press Office has an RSS feed for news about the BBC itself. It contains links to notices on appointments and other useful things.

The current items are rather confusing, because many of the 'appointments' are either (a) posts which have been re-named as part of Mark Thompson's re-shuffle; or (b) posts which replace existing posts. The proliferation of titles - Controller, Heads, Directors - makes the appointments difficult to understand without an organigram.

Of the nine appointments, only one - Peter Salmon, Chief Creative Officer (BBC Vision) - is an external hire. He comes from Channel 4 after several years at the BBC. Five had had experience working with ITV or Channel 4. Three - mostly in MC&A - have come from outside the media (Coca-Cola, Bass Brewers). None are BBC 'lifers', but all have some experience at the BBC - from four to around twenty years', to be more precise. Those involved with content - as opposed to marketing or HR - seem to have been around the BBC for longer.

RTVE Administrative Council and election coverage

This article detailing election coverage in the Catalonian elections is interesting for two reasons. First, it's another reminder to Britons that the debates about the distribution of party political broadcasts is astonishingly conflict-free - or at least appears that way. Second, it's the first time I've seen reference to the (national) RTVE board of administration, and, significantly, references to members include party affiliations. If Carmen Caffarel is to succeed in her ambition that the new Council of RTVE should not be "a platform for confrontation between political forces", this latter will need to change.