Dissett axed from PBS schedule

Only five years ago, the PBS editorial board – then headed by Fr Joe Borg – had warned the national broadcaster was headed to its “worst possible death”, in a damning report that slammed the station’s commercialised programme schedule.

Now it is Reno Bugeja’s Dissett, whose current affairs discussion programme filled in this void, that has an uncertain future.

Its Tuesday slot, formerly aired at the very late 9:45pm, was not accepted by the new PBS board of directors, ostensibly due to a new policy to broadcast current affairs programmes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

With Where’s Everybody’s Bondiplus already allocated its traditional Monday slot, Dissett was offered the Wednesday slot. But this was turned down by its presenter, due to its possible conflict with UEFA Champions’ League matches usually played in the evenings and which command the total attention of the population.

Instead a Saturday slot, aired at the evening primetime slot of 8:45pm, was accepted by the Dissett presenter, until PBS retracted when producers of the programme that was about to lose the Saturday spot objected.

MaltaToday understands there was little or no opposition from PBS head of news Natalino Fenech, given that inquiries were made within the PBS newsroom for journalists to take up the Wednesday slot.

As things stand, Dissett remains off-air unless an agreement is reached for a new slot for the second part of the TVM schedule, leaving current affairs to be dominated by Xarabank and Bondiplus.

The decision bodes ill for newly-appointed chief executive Anton Attard, who led the prime minister’s media campaign during the 2008 election: Dissett commanded 27% of viewership on Tuesday evenings, the most followed in the 10-12pm segment.

Bugeja is the most senior journalist at PBS, enjoying a reputation of fairness and objectivity in his one-to-one interviews with government ministers and persons in authority.

In the meantime, TVM has practically doubled its financial partnerships with third-party producers, by supporting production houses who were – according to PBS chairman Joseph Mizzi – finding it hard “to sell advertising that sustains their operations, and consequently shifting their focus from quality productions to financial management and feasibility.”

89% of all programmes on-air between this October and December enjoy a partnership between PBS and production houses – a substantial increase from 46% when compared to the same period in 2009 that TVM hopes will bear fruit within the coming weeks.

Back in 2005, soon after PBS entered a drastic restructuring programme spearheaded by Minister Austin Gatt, it was left with just one news programme produced by the PBS newsroom, Info, that had been planned to air before the 8pm news during peak time, but then transferred to the inopportune time slot on Sunday at 6.15pm.


The PBS editorial board had then remarked that it was “difficult, not to say impossible” to produce a truly investigative programme” without the required investment.