After a four-year effort, the draft Law on Radio and Television Establishment and Broadcast Services has been opened to the Cabinet for signature and will soon be sent to Parliament, State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç announced yesterday during a joint press conference at the Dolmabahçe Office of the Prime Ministry with Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) President Davut Dursun.
The bill is critical in terms of foreign investment in Turkish media and is expected to facilitate foreign ownership in media in Turkey by allowing foreign legal persons to own as much as 50 percent of a Turkish media organ.
Until now, most foreigners have shunned investment in this sector as, with only a maximum 25 percent ownership, they would not have any say in administration. The bill also removes the ban on foreign owners becoming partners in a second media organization. Now foreigners can buy shares in more than one media organization, but ownership cannot exceed 25 percent in the second or third company. However, the new bill still includes certain restrictions: Foreign interests will not be able to invest in regional and local television and radio stations.
The draft was prepared in accordance with the provisions contained within the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive that went into effect in December 2007. The 52 articles of the draft (excluding temporary articles) aim to solve sector issues, eliminate confusion over jurisdiction, give RTÜK more power with respect to broadcast supervision and increase sector competition. Dursun also spoke at the press conference, saying the draft represented an important step in laying the legal foundations for broadcasting in an age of new broadcast technologies, eliminating gray areas. He said this was an important move toward personalized broadcasts, commenting that “[the bill] is the result of a four-year effort. While the new regulations regarding the sector were being drafted, many, many joint meetings were held with radio and television stations and the relevant public institutions. Following the draft’s completion, it was presented to those institutions as well and radio and TV stations and civil society organizations. The draft was reviewed again after views were gathered from these different players, then published on RTÜK’s Web site. For a month, feedback from that was monitored before the draft took its final form.”
The new bill will also address the controversial issue of ratings in Turkey -- brought to the agenda time and time again with allegations of manipulation by ratings firms -- by foreseeing the regulation of the collection of ratings data by RTÜK; the firms putting out ratings figures will also have to get permission from RTÜK. In his remarks yesterday, Arınç noted that in 1990, private radio and television broadcasting began in Turkey with minimal legal oversight until 1993, when constitutional changes lifted the monopoly on such broadcasts. In 1994, a law established RTÜK, the first regulatory agency monitoring private radio and television broadcasters, Arınç recalled, and legal changes in 2002, 2005 and 2008 brought various changes to the industry, including monetary fines for violations of broadcast law.
