Communications Minister Shlomo Karahi said on Saturday that he wanted to significantly reduce funding for the Cannes public broadcaster. The station’s manager warned that the move would force it to close.
Karahi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said he would push for the funding cuts to be included in a package of laws to accompany the next state budget.
In an interview with Channel 12 News, he declared, “There is no place for public broadcasting in the State of Israel.” “Barriers will be removed and markets will open up to competition.”
“Budget of [Kan] Tens of millions of shekels will be reduced,” he added.
KAN began operating in 2017, replacing the legacy Israel Broadcasting Authority and Channel 1, long criticized for budgetary waste and antiquated programming. Cannes, in contrast, has proved far more popular, producing some of the country’s most popular and acclaimed television content in recent years.
Cannes currently has an annual budget of over NIS 750 million (about $220 million).
“Today, these millions go to a single player in the market and block out all competition,” Karahi insisted.
He also vowed to shut down the Second Authority for television and radio and the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, a pair of state bodies that regulate commercial broadcasting.
Example: The studio of the new Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation on May 14, 2017. (Yossi Aloni/Cannes)
In response to Karahi, the director-general of Cannes said that the shutdown would result in cuts to the public broadcaster’s budget amounting to hundreds of millions of shekels.
,[Kan]As an independent broadcasting body, will continue its activities despite threats to its existence,” Golan Yochpaz wrote on Twitter.
The Union of Journalists in Israel described Karahi’s proposed budget cuts as a “declaration of war on the public broadcaster”.
In a statement, the union said, “All talk of shutting down or privatizing the public broadcaster is nothing less than an attempt to intimidate the broadcaster’s journalists and prevent them from doing their job honestly, while harming the livelihood of hundreds of families.” “
It added: “We call on the attempts of intimidation to end and the broadcaster’s staff to continue the excellent work they do.”
Golan Yochpaz. (Wikipedia)
Karahi’s comments on Saturday came after he said earlier in the week that there was no reason to support state public broadcasting in Israel and indicated he intended to shut Kan.
He then also said that he would propose privatization of Army Radio, which is operated by the Israel Defense Forces.
In November, during coalition talks, an unsourced Channel 12 report said that Likud would seek to shut down Cannes’ news department, but retain the scripted programming and documentary-making departments.
In response, the Likud party insisted that the issue had not come up during coalition talks. At the time, Karahi tweeted that he was not aware of any such plans, but that it was a move he supported.
“There is no reason to keep the public broadcaster on the back burner to the tune of around NIS 1 billion a year,” he wrote. ,[Shutting down] Ear is just a start, then Army Radio.
When Kan began operating, then-Prime Minister Netanyahu – who also served for years as Minister of Communications – strongly opposed its construction, reportedly viewing it as too left-wing and difficult to control.
Internal disagreements over the matter almost brought down the alliance in 2017. However, if the news department is closed now, the move is unlikely to withstand pushback from Netanyahu’s current right-wing religious government.
