Public Service Broadcasting Resists The search for independence in Brazil and Eastern Europe Octavio Penna Pieranti OCTAVIO PENNA PIERANTI PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING RESISTS The search for independence in Brazil and Eastern Europe Sofia, 2020 Copyright © Author Octavio Penna Pieranti Translation Lee Sharp Publisher Foundation Media Democracy Cover (design) Rafiza Varão Cover (photo) Octavio Penna Pieranti ISBN 978-619-90423-3-5 A first edition of this book was published in Portuguese in 2018 (“A radiodifusão pública resiste: a busca por independência no Brasil e no Leste Europeu”, Ed. FAC/UnB). This edition includes a new and final chapter in which the author updates the situation of Public Service Broadcasting in Brazil. To the (still) young Octavio, who will one day realize that communication goes beyond his favorite “episodes”, heroes and villains Table of Contents The late construction of public communication: two cases ............. 9 Tereza Cruvinel Thoughts on public service broadcasting: the importance of comparative studies ............................................................................ 13 Valentina Marinescu QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS .......................................................... 19 I ........................................................................................................... 21 THE END .............................................................................................. 43 II ......................................................................................................... 45 III ........................................................................................................ 61 IV ........................................................................................................ 71 Albania .......................................................................................... 77 East Germany ............................................................................... 78 Bulgaria ......................................................................................... 90 Czechoslovakia ............................................................................ 91 Hungary ........................................................................................ 94 Poland ............................................................................................ 95 Romania ........................................................................................ 98 Soviet Union ............................................................................... 104 Yugoslavia .................................................................................. 110 THE MIDDLE ..................................................................................... 117 V ....................................................................................................... 119 VI ...................................................................................................... 133 VII .................................................................................................... 139 VIII ................................................................................................... 154 THE BEGINNING ............................................................................. 163 IX ...................................................................................................... 165 X ....................................................................................................... 184 XI ...................................................................................................... 191 XII ..................................................................................................... 206 XIII ................................................................................................... 214 XIV ................................................................................................... 221 XV .................................................................................................... 229 XVI ................................................................................................... 240 XVII .................................................................................................. 248 EPILOGUE .......................................................................................... 267 XVIII ................................................................................................ 269 Afterword: Does Public Communication in Brazil resist? ....... 276 References ........................................................................................... 281 Interviews ....................................................................................... 281 Publications .................................................................................... 282 Acknowledgements This book is the result of research that began in Brasilia, but soon stretched out to include five countries overseas. I relied on the support and attentiveness of several researchers from each of these countries, both in person and remotely, including educational institutions and civil society entities. This work would not have been possible without the collaboration, dedication and support from the following interlocutors: Andrej Skolkay, David Smahel, Michał Głowacki, Nikoleta Daskalova, Pavel Sedláček and, particularly, Valentina Marinescu, who not only provided me with a number of contacts but also took it upon herself to contact them. She also became a friend, willing to talk for hours about my research and the situation in Eastern Europe. I would like to thank all my interviewees, whose names and profiles are presented in the following chapters, for their eagerness to share their stories and memories about communications in their respective countries. On this side of the Atlantic Ocean, I would like to thank Murilo César Ramos, a friend and key reference for decades in communication politics research in Brazil, as well as my postdoctoral internship supervisor for the Faculty of Communication Postgraduate Program at the University of Brasilia (FAC/UnB), where this book was born. I would like to thank Fernando Paulino, Rafiza Varão and Vanessa Negrini and their partnership with FAC Livros, a dynamic publisher established in the FAC/UnB, which was responsible for the original publishing of this book in Portuguese and my previous one entitled, “Public Service Broadcasting Politics in Dilma’s Government”. Over the last ten years I have had the privilege of contributing towards a public communication project in Brazil in my time as head of office (and other positions I have held) at the 7 Brazil Communication Company (EBC). A part of this book is a reflection of my studies and experiences during this time. Special thanks goes to Tereza Cruvinel, the first manager of EBC, and all those who dedicated themselves to this project. Last, but certainly not least, I thank my family for their understanding and support throughout this project, one that involved travelling, reading dozens of texts, and countless hours spent on editing. During this period, my wife, Miriam Wimmer, with the help of my parents and my mother-in-law, redoubled their efforts in raising our son Octavio, a lively, curious, intelligent boy. May those characteristics instilled in him help to build a better country in the future. 8 The late construction of public communication: two cases Tereza Cruvinel1 Public service broadcasting, in addition to being a poorly understood concept, is also a poorly documented experience, except for in a few countries where it has developed and achieved a high degree of consolidation, namely in Central Europe. The merits of this new book by Octavio Penna Pieranti are two-fold: it helps toward overcoming these two aforementioned shortcomings by providing conceptual elements while also rescuing important experiences for building public service broadcasting systems. Pieranti draws a comparison of two experiences which, due to their later development (in relation to the emergence of the first public service broadcasters and the level of global broadcasting), did not have to start from the ground up; they were, instead, able to start by converting pre-existing state- governmental structures into public communication systems. These two experiences occurred in Brazil, represented by the creation of the Brazil Communication Company (EBC), and in Eastern European countries which, after the collapse of Real Socialism, were committed to transforming state ownership into public. Pieranti makes his comparison based on a combination of personal experience and research. After working with digital 1 Journalist and first director and president of the Brazil Communication Company – EBC (2007-2011). 9 content in the Ministry of Culture, and coordinating the First National Communication Conference (Confecom) in 2009, Pieranti helped establish the EBC. As head of office his work was crucial towards solving the obstacles and dilemmas the project faced. His postdoctoral research at FAC / UnB on Eastern Europe and its transition from state to public led him to visit some of the countries in the region, where he interviewed professionals, managers and researchers, and collected some striking data and statistics on the current reality of public service broadcasting in that part of the world. As one might expect, he starts by establishing conceptual frameworks that in his view (a view which is also shared by many intellects) are needed to distinguish