A-G decrees that financially troubled TV channel can continue operating as usual until after March elections.
By GREER FAY CASHMANChannel 10(photo credit: screenshot)
Channel 10, which was in danger of ceasing to exist on December 31, has received a temporary reprieve.Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein, at the last-minute, decreed that Channel 10 would continue broadcasting as usual until after the March 17 election and the formation of a new government.All issues regarding the future of Channel 10 should be deferred until that time, Weinstein said.It remains for legislation to be enacted to give the channel an extension on its broadcasting license.During the six-month period of grace, Channel 10 will have to find sufficient funding to satisfy the Second Authority for Television and Radio.Although the channel was able to secure funding to pay the NIS 36 million that it owes to the Second Authority, it could not prove that it will remain solvent, and the Second Authority therefore refused to renew its broadcasting license for 2015.The future of Channel 2 franchisees Keshet and Reshet depends to some extent on whether Channel 10 continues broadcasting indefinitely.When Interior Minister Gilad Erdan was communications minister, he tried to force the two franchisees to operate competitive news corporations that would have increased their expenses.Erdan’s urging was based on the possibility that Channel 10 would close down, and that there would then be no competition as far as commercial television channels were concerned.
