Knesset passes controversial delay for new public broadcaster

In the early hours of Thursday morning, a late-night Knesset session ended one of the most fraught controversies of the current parliamentary term when lawmakers voted in favor of delaying the launch of a new state broadcasting corporation until April of next year.

The delay was a compromise reached between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also serves as communications minister, and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Netanyahu sought to push off the new agency’s launch until 2018, while Kahlon demanded an earlier date.

The amendment delays launch until April 30, 2017, when the Israel Broadcasting Authority, which oversees Channel 1, several national radio stations and other outlets, will be formally shuttered and the Broadcasting Corporation will begin transmitting.

Last week, ministers sparred over the new broadcaster at a tempestuous cabinet meeting that saw one Likud member, Culture Minister Miri Regev, muse that there would be no point to the new media organization “if we don’t control it.”

Long-sought reforms of the cash-strapped Israel Broadcasting Authority coalesced into a plan to form the new corporation in 2014. The plan passed the Knesset in a law backed by then-communications minister Gilad Erdan and Netanyahu.

Under the 2014 law, the corporation is exempted from oversight rules that apply to most public corporations, severely limiting the ability of politicians to intervene in the hiring of senior staff or in content decisions.

It is that more strictly delineated independence from the political echelon that has rankled some ministers, especially on the right, who have charged that Israeli media generally leans toward the political left.

Many on both left and right have charged that Netanyahu’s efforts to delay the launch would create uncertainty about the new agency’s viability and hurt hiring efforts. Jewish Home leader Education Minister Naftali Bennett last month openly accused Netanyahu of attempting to pressure media outlets with the delay, while similar, if less strident, criticism came even from Likud ministers such as Erdan and Gila Gamliel.

Netanyahu has said that the delay was caused by logistical difficulties that forced a later launch date.

The delay required an amendment to the 2014 law that established the corporation, so Netanyahu needed help from coalition allies to make it happen. He found that ally in Kahlon, though with a much reduced delay and Kahlon’s own promises that the corporation would be established on time.

The Knesset passed that amendment in its third and final vote Thursday by a vote of 41 to 3, with 6 abstentions.

Netanyahu and Kahlon are permitted to push up the launch to January 1, 2017 if they deem the nascent corporation, which is already hiring journalists, constructing broadcast venues and the like, ready to broadcast.

Before Thursday’s change, the corporation’s launch date was set for next month.

The new corporation is slated to take over and expand current public broadcast offerings, including the IBA’s radio and TV stations.