On October 28, MNB Director General L. Ninjjamts resigned from her position voluntarily. She was appointed for the position first in 2017, and again this year, for a renewed three-years tenure. Employees of the Public Broadcasting Service, whose salaries were cut and who oppose the actions of their management, are now demanding the resignation of the National Council. Our civil society needs to understand exactly what is happening and why is that the case, as well as to find a way out of this issue and to express their views. That is because the public service broadcaster is public property and their voice. A non-commercial, non-government-controlled public broadcaster is a platform where all citizens meet, and equality prevails. The public broadcaster is at service to every citizen, a developer of national heritage and a guarantee for democracy.
What is happening?
The Radio of Mongolia was established in 1934 and National Television in 1967, and both served as the ideological voice of one political party for fifty years. The democratic revolution took place in 1990, and then in 1998, ‘the Law on Freedom of Press’ was passed. The law “prohibits government agencies from having their own media outlets”. Furthermore, “the Law on Public Radio and Television” was adopted in 2005 and the state-run Mongolian Radio and Television Administration (MRTA) was renamed as “the public radio and television” – MNB to serve the “Mongolian people”. In addition, it was tasked with “broadcasting services for foreign listeners and viewers, informing about Mongolia’s foreign and domestic policies, as well as preparing and distributing programs to promote Mongolia in the world”. Furthermore, the 184-meter-high TV tower and the retransmission stations in the countryside which merge radio waves were separated into state-owned industries.
The highest governing body of the MNB is the National Council (NC). The NC has 15 adjunct members (4 nominated by the President, 7 by the Parliament, and 4 by the Government) who represent the public interest and are appointed for a six-year term. This NC is responsible for appointing, contracting and dismissing the Director General.
Along with this law, the organization began to suffer, laying the foundation for many recurring scandals. Today’s issue is not only about the Director General. It’s about a systemic issue and the drama surrounding the resignation of the head is just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s take a look at the underlying major issues of the four principles of public broadcasting services around the world. Unless the fundamental is solved systematically, appointing a new head will be ineffective.
The purpose of a public broadcaster in a democracy is to: inform promptly and provide education and entertainment to the citizens. It is based on four principles: universality, diversity, independence, distinctiveness.
Universal reach
Public broadcasters differ from government and commercial media outlets in their accessibility for everyone. Everyone, regardless of ethnicity, social status, or purchasing power, should be able to watch the program from anywhere in the country. That’s why a certain service fee is charged from each household to fund the public broadcaster. In our country, every family can have access to public television programs. But where did the long and medium wave radio programs go that could be heard from anywhere in the countryside? The program is there, but the transmission is gone. In foreign countries, in the event of a natural disaster such as an earthquake or flood, radios must be carried in a safety bag in addition to flashlights, candles and matches.
Diversity of content
The MNB currently broadcasts on three radio channels and five specialized channels consisting of television, news, sports, the world, and family. Of these five, the news channel reaches the most viewers. They spent 10 percent of their total expenditure on creating contents in 2015, 30 percent in 2016, 11 percent in 2017, 18 percent in 2018, and 20 percent in 2019. The main reason is that in 2015, support from the state budget was halved. As the number of employees is about 750, 60 percent of total expenditures were spent on salaries and bonuses in 2015, 45 percent in 2016, 37 percent in 2017, 40 percent in 2018, and 47 percent in 2019. The productivity will increase if each channel has an independent budget and its own economic calculation setting the employee numbers.
Being independent
This is the weakest area of the MNB. Since its inception, it has always been politically influenced and dependent on the state. In 2012, the DP took power, with State Great Khural chairman Z. Enkhbold installing seven of his own people to the National Council, halving the state budget support for the Public Broadcasting, and releasing M.Naranbaatar of his duty, the director general who was incumbent since August 2006. In January 2015, he was replaced by former Secretary General of the DP, Ts.Oyundari. In June 2016, state power passed onto the MPP. Ts.Oyundari was fired after a series of inspections and some threats to cut the public broadcaster’s funding. In early 2017, L.Ninjjamts, a former member of the MPP Convention, was appointed to replace her. For the first time, the government made an additional investment of 5.2 billion Tugriks in 2017 and 3.9 billion Tugriks in 2018, allowing digitalization of television and radio and the renovation of buildings. The MPP soon experienced an internal split and changed the government. In 2020, 5.2 billion of the 9 billion Tugrik state budget support was cut in the August decree. Although the pandemic is a major cause, none of the ministers objected this decision. Thus, it is taking place another time with the aim of replacing the head appointed by the previous government with their own people.
The government, which should not have its own media, has set up its own audio-visual studios to prepare contents and broadcast it on public broadcaster and commercial television. It is a serious violation of the public broadcaster’s editorial independence to have a special weekly program for entities including the Government, the Parliament, the President, Prosecutors, IAAC, Police and Defense. Neither the Director General nor the Chairman of the National Council spoke about it. Ideally, the issue should be covered and explained from the point of view of the public interest after independent journalists have discovered the issue and published the relevant news. The case here is that the government is forcing the MNB to comply using its leverage of funding, which violates the basic principle of the public broadcaster to be non-governmental, public and independent. The MNB is now in a dead end.
Distinctiveness
The public broadcaster must be able to be differentiated from all other channels in terms of quality, especially in terms of the nature of the program. This requires all artists to ensure that each program is of exceptionally high quality, comprising deep content and being inspiring, innovative and up to date at the same time. In the world of audio and video, they have to set the pace for development so that other channels can learn. MNB needs to increase the number of such new productions. What is needed is not foreign series, but programs that creatively enrich and improve the national concepts.
What now?
First of all, the most flawed of the above-mentioned four principles is independence and, it needs to be implemented. Since it is so dependent on politics, people have begun to doubt that the MNB is for the public good. Citizens who do not trust the government, stuck in its corruption, certainly would not be attracted to a media that has completely lost independence. Therefore, even with good content, the number of viewers is declining.
On the other hand, it makes people wonder why they have to pay a monthly license fee to the state-run media. Each household is charged a monthly license fee of 1100 tugriks in the city and 850 tugriks in rural areas. In other countries, that fee amount to more than 10 dollars. This “radio and television service fee” covers only a quarter of the public broadcaster’s expenditure. Meanwhile, half of the total expenditure is covered by the support from state budget. The rest is made up of revenue from advertising. The public broadcaster is legally allowed to broadcast advertisements for less than two percent of that day’s airtime. Also offering services such as renting of equipments and other assets, along with receiving donations, can be a source of income.
The MNB defines its mission as “to be the intellectual guide of the society with the public interest as its utmost priority, and also to respect intellectual property, to be a professional production organization with a national content.” Now it would be necessary to add a part stating, “to serve only the public and to be independent.” In order to do so, the law needs to include provisions that encompass government support, such as 0.05 percent of the state budget, regardless of the ruling party. On the other hand, they need to increase the monthly license fees and eventually get funding only from this source. However, in the current context of social network era, it would be appropriate to reduce service fees and increase the budget.
The chairman of the National Council, who is responsible for promptly informing the public about government interference, must be a politically impartial individual. Only this way the director general can be independent.
In order for the public to fully understand the principle of independence in terms of content, as well as to monitor and correct financial and artistic activities in accordance with these principles in a timely manner, the Canadian public media practices of appointing a media ombudsman can be implemented to track public complaints and to give orders to the management about fixing errors in time.
All in all, it is time to reiterate the critical role that the ability of the public broadcaster to be independent can play in strengthening democracy, improving public governance, and cracking down on corruption, which is the biggest obstacle.
2020.11.02
Trans. by Riya.T and Munkh-Erdene.D