WE ARE GETING "POPULAR"...
by
Prof Bulent Caplý
3 March 1998, The British Council, Ankara
LIST OF TOPICS:
Turkish TV and Radio in the late 1990s
Turkey's first broadcasting organisation, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), was established in 1963. The autonomy of the broadcasting service, as laid down in the constitution, was translated into an Act of Parliament, which decreed that all radio and television programmes had to be made and distributed by an autonomous and independent organsiation. TRT was a publicly-owned autonomous institution having legal status; and its functions were defined as being those of a public service broadcasting company which had a monopoly in Turkey. TRT launched the country's first television station on January 31st, 1968, broadcasting programmes for six or seven hours each day. However, these programmes were transmitted to a very small catchment area due to low transmission power. Until 1984, TRT's television channel (TRT1) was the only channel on offer to the viewer. That same year this channel began to broadcast its programmes in colour.
In September 1990, a commercial channel (STAR 1), benefiting from a loophole in the monopoly law, began broadcasting its programmes in Turkish via satellite from Germany. Inside Turkey the channel was officially forbidden to preserve TRT's monopoly; but was relayed terrestrially by local municipalities as a symbol of political opposition to the government. Until it was granted terrestrial status, STAR 1's progress was slow. Once a privately owned television channel had been established, to compete with TRT, a whole host of new private television and radio channels began to reach Turkish viewers. The broadcasting system as a result experienced a series of rapid and radical changes. By the beginning of 1993, there were almost 500 local commercial radio stations and 100 local television stations operating without licences. The government was faced with little choice: as the private radio and television channels had won the hearts of the nation, there was little else that could be done but to legalise the de facto pirates.
By the mid-1990s the main problem was that there was neither a law to regulate newly emergent private radio and television channels, nor a regulatory body to assign frequencies to private operators and regulate channels. Private channels were using powerful transmitters, which caused interference to other frequencies, hence jamming other channels. Finally, Parliament accepted a proposal on 8th August 1993 to amend the Constitutional Article No. 133, lifting the monopoly on radio and television broadcasting. The new proposal rendered it necessary for radio and television stations established by the government to be autonomous, while at the same time stipulating that all radio and television stations, including those that were privately-owned, would be regulated by law. Following this change in the constitiution, the long-awaited Radio and Television Bill was passed by Parliament on 13th April 1994, to regulate both private and public service broadcasting. The bill provided for the establishment of a Radio and Television Council (similar to the Independent Television Commission and the Radio Authority in Britain) to determine whether all broadcasts followed the basic guidelines put forward in the Bill. This new Council was made up of nine members, appointed by Parliament. The Council was also assigned the duty of allocating frequencies, channels and tramsmission licences to all broadcasting organisations. Having experienced the effects of unregulated broadcasting with no powers of restriction or sanction, Parliament decided to equip this new body with a range of possible sanctions. The lightest of these was a warning. If a station continued to ignore the Council's decisions, then tougher sanctions would be implemented, ranging from closing the station down for one day, or withdrawing the station's broadcasting licence altogether. The implementation of this Bill did not solve all the problems concerning television and radio stations. In fact, it drew many criticisms from different representatives of the broadcasting lobby. Prominent amongst these was the way in which the Council had been formed; it was believed to be overtly political, which might affect its impartiality of judgement. Secondly, the range of possible sanctions on the broadcasting stations was considered to be too strict.
(See also "Media and the Law" by Dr Laurence RAW)
Turkish Radio and Television in the late 1990s
Today there are eleven private channels which broadcast nationally in Turkey. When the five TRT channels are added to this, one can see that there is plenty of choice available. In fact, this is not the whole picture, as there are also 15 regional and 229 local television channels of varying sizes, especially in the big cities. The common feature of all these channels is their use of electro-magnetic waves. Most of them are threatened with closure as too many of them are fighting for limited revenue. The vast majority of private television channels offer a similar mix of programmes. A few of tem are specific in focus: music channels such as KRAL TV offering a mix of video clips, one new channel (NTV) and one pay-TV movie channel (CINE 5). The most common programming policy of the private channels is geared towards entertainment, news and sport, especially football. At the beginning of the private television era, most channels preferred to serve up a diet of old American movies and repeats of popular soap operas and serials. Their 24-hour schedules included cheap adventures, romances, serials and game shows. Now the private channels are exploiting the potential of locally produced sitcoms, soap operas and dramas. By contrast, so-called cultural programmes, current affairs and documentaries were removed from the schedules; they were expensive and attracted low ratings. TRT, on the other hand, is trying to keep its programme schedule free from the pressures of ratings. Currently independent production companies play a very important part in programme production. The private channels prefer to produce talk-shows and entertainment shows in-house. Thus, the channels' demand for other popular types of programme are met by the independent companies, most of which are located in Istanbul.
Currently the Turkish broadcasting sector is dominated by ratings - something which never existed before 1990. The reason for this sudden interest in ratings was the private channels' desire to find out just how large an audience they had, and what their share of that audience was in relation to their rivals. In other words, the most important thing for television organisations and advertisers was to see how many people were watching their programmes. The only company using a 'people metering' system to collect this very much sought-after data was AGB. Howver, the information gathered by this company was interpreted liberally by all channels to suit their own purposes.
In the midst of this 'circulation and ratings' struggle, the media have paid little attention to ethics. Actually, there has been an increasing concern amongst viewers and listeners regarding media ethics and ethical codes; even journalists cannot agree as to what media ethics actually means. For this reason, a consensus is unlikely to be forged in the future.
(See also "Media Ethics and Media Regulation in Britain" by Dr Laurence RAW)
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