Channel 10 executives spend the night holed up in the Finance Ministry

Senior directors refuse to leave the building over debt resolution impasse

Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

Channel 10 workers protest outside the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem in November, 2012 (photo credit: Oren Nahshon/Flash90)
Channel 10 workers protest outside the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem in November, 2012 (photo credit: Oren Nahshon/Flash90)

Three senior executives from cash-strapped Channel 10 spent Wednesday night in the Finance Ministry building after refusing to leave the premises. They are in the midst of a dispute over resolving the station’s overwhelming debts.

The television stations’s board chairman Avi Balashnikov, board member Michal Graybowski, and temporary director-general Yoav Heldman, brought food and water with them in preparation for a sit-in.

The three executives arrived at the building on Wednesday for a meeting with officials to discuss an agreement for saving Channel 10, which owes hundreds of millions of shekels in licensing fees and is unable to pay its employees’ wages. However, the meeting, one of several held in recent weeks, ended without agreement and the three executives then refused to leave the building until another discussion was scheduled.

In August, Channel 10 sacked 150 staffers, about one third of its manpower, and it has been under threat of closure for several months.

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