The preferential stance towards civil society and minorities is part of the roles that must be conducted by the Public Broadcasting institution to implement public education. Despite the managerial problems, creativity and funding remain a major obstacle for the broadcaster institution to be able to draw public attention.
The issue rose in the discussion Evaluating the Performance of TVRI as Public TV Station that was organized by S2 Communication Science study program of Faculty of Social and Political Sciences on Monday afternoon (23/8). The discussion presented UGM Communication Expert, Ashadi Siregar, TVRI Yogyakarta Manager, Wahyudi, and UGM media observer, I Gusti Ngurah Putra, as speakers.
Ashadi said that the presence of public broadcasting institution actually departed from the concern over the conditions of ethnic diversity, religion and class in society. Therefore, the quality of the broadcasted programs should also align to the minorities. "It includes the cultural values of humanity and justice, neutrality and independence, intelligence and rationality," he said. Mentioning about the financial policy that still burdens the public broadcasting media, according Ashadi, it is highly dependent on the political process to lobby the Parliament and government to get funds from the state/ region budget (APBN/APBD). "Because there is no political consensus before, it remains a problem for the public broadcasting media," he added.
To get the public contributions and donations, TVRI is also still hampered by stigma of the past. Yet, the current public broadcasting media should be free from intervention of the regime. "In this era of reform, the regime must never direct and influence public opinion," he said.
Similar opinion was delivered by I Gusti Ngurah. He argued that the issue of funding becomes major problem for TVRI as Public TV station. The TVRI plans to seek funding through the state budget amounting to 1.3 trillion in 2011 could be realized with a condition that it is in line with benchmarks performance quality that can be used as the reason to the Parliament and government to disburse the fund. As it is known, this year TVRI only manages a fund of 573 billion. "To obtain a large budget, TVRI must have an argument related with the performance report as a benchmark for the government and parliament," he said.
In addition to established wide coverage, said Ngurah, TVRI is recommended to count the number of audience share. Audience share research according to Ngurah is not for advertising purposes but for the justification that this broadcasting institution deserves to be financed by the public.
In the meantime, Wahyudi conveyed that 70 percent of TVRI operational funds currently come from the government. From those funds, 90 percent is used to hire thousands of its employees. "Consequently, to think to create a better program is quite difficult," he said.
In addition, TVRI also often faces problems of internal consolidation with the change of the institutional status, previously as the government TV station (1962), Bureau Company in 2000, Public Corporation in 2002, and finally Public Broadcasting TV since 2005.