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Yasen Guev

A story instead of an introduction.

Story

A few months ago, the journalist Petya Dikova invited the singer Victoria Terziyska from the group “Mastilo" and her young children in the weekend morning show on bTV. One of them said something bad about the TV and that no one was watching it. For broad-minded people, which I think are the vast majority of people in Bulgaria, the fact that a small child went out of his way to say something she shouldn't have hardly deserves any attention.

Apart from the comments on social media, the topic was forgotten until Mr. Hekimyan decided to make changes by removing the hosts of the weekend morning shows, including Petya Dikova, and replacing them with young reporters Beste Sabri and Mityu Marinov. This led to publications that one of the reasons for the change, especially in the case of Petya Dikova, was precisely the episode with Victoria Terziyska and her daughter. Dikova is currently a reporter.

bTV decided not to comment on the case. However, this is exactly what Viktoria Terziyska did last week, who was a guest on the program "Before noon" on the same television. She said that she did not understand the management's silence, because everyone knew that Petya Dikova wanted to have more time for her family, and this is the reason to not want to be a presenter anymore.

Proposal - Nikolaos Tsitiridis to become head of news at BTV

Why am I spending so much time on this children's story. Because it is indicative of the clumsy way in which the television responded to the case with the candidacy of Anton Hekimyan for mayor of Sofia - my suggestion for his replacement may seem funny to you, but it is based on the fact that the only person who reacted adequately was the comedian Nikolaos Tsitiridis .

In his characteristic style, he made a edited conversation with Hekimyan from his archival appearances and among the jokes inserted the sentence that everyone in the newsroom was furious with him.

Two of the presenters got into ridiculous, in my opinion, situations. Before the elections, Tsvetanka Rizova asked Temenuzka Petkova from GERB whether she- Rizova- was also nominated for mayor and found out that no one proposed her. Tomislav Donchev from GERB joked with the presenter Zheni Marcheva that they could consider her for the upcoming elections for the European Parliament, to which she replied with a joke.

However, there was nothing funny. If you want people to clearly understand your position, you need to express it categorically. Otherwise, it turns out that more journalists from this TV station dream of a political career in GERB, and are disappointed that they did not receive an offer.

As I already said - Tsitiridis

bTV's communication and management mistakes did not stop there. Instead of giving a new perspective by appointing a replacement for Hekimyan, they have been letting rumours to spread on social media for more than a month now.

There has been speculation on various websites about names from the television and former employees who may take over the position of Director of News.

In every large, aspiring international company, there is a plan to replace key personnel. Every director is required to have a successor prepared should one have to leave. This usually includes a minimum of one internal candidate - and sometimes a shortlist of at least 3 external candidates.

BTV was clearly unprepared.

Falling ratings

It has not been news for a long time that the ratings of Nova TV are significantly better than those of bTV. In the most watched evening time zones, Nova TV is more watched - the only exception is "Voice of Bulgaria" on BTV, which competes with "Rachkov's Show".

After the local elections, Nova TV came out with the following message:

“With more than 15 hours of TV time dedicated to the local elections yesterday, NOVA left the competing TV stations far behind. According to official People metrics results, NOVA's audience share among active-age viewers (18-59) remains unsurpassed in each of its broadcast program segments.

The special format "The Election of Bulgaria: The New Mayors" in the late afternoon reports more than twice the audience share compared to the second television in the ranking, and the lead of the central information broadcast of NOVA News is more than 50%.

On the day of the local elections, the Nova Broadcasting Group news channel also scored an exceptional result. In the afternoon hours between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m., NOVA NEWS aired a series of live coverage and newscasts, reporting an audience share of 6.7% among active age viewers (18-59), climbing to the fourth place among all television channels in the country. On average for the whole day, NOVA NEWS is the absolute leader among the news channels in Bulgaria."

It is obvious to everyone that Nova Television invests much more seriously in creating Bulgarian series, broadcasts the Bulgarian football championship, the Premier League of England, Formula 1 and many other sports events. BTV broadcasts some less popular football championships such as those in Italy and Portugal, as well as some of the Champions League matches.

What did Anton Hekimyan's candidacy achieve?

Already at the beginning of the election process, it was clear that GERB had almost no chance of winning the mayor's seat in Sofia. Hekimyan's election raises many questions about his relationship with GERB over the years leading up to the speedy acceptance of the offer to run. And here it is not a question of his right to become a politician, but of whether his political leanings have influenced the editorial policy.

BTV's image was hit, and apparently it is not a problem for GERB that their undercover fan is no longer leading the news.

Whether advertisers will be influenced by the political drama does not really matter - the ratings are clearly persistently low. This automatically leads to the loss of advertising money and its outflow to Nova TV. They must be lighting a candle there for BTV to continue on the same path.

Why are the owners of BTV not doing anything to compete with Nova TV?

BTV is owned by the Czech fund PPF - after the death of its founder Petar Kellner, it is controlled by his widow Renata Kellnerova, who owns 60% of the shares and manages the remaining 40%, which is owned by Kellner's four children - three from his marriage with Renata and one from a previous marriage. The executive director is Jiri Smejc - he himself is a billionaire with a large business of his own.

In the past few years, PPF has exited investments in Asia and Russia and announced a course towards investments mainly in Western Europe and possibly the US. Recently, PPF also announced a deal for 50% plus one share of almost all of its mobile operators except the one in the Czech Republic to Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates.

Part of this transaction is the Bulgarian operator Yettel, and it was announced that the deal will be finalized early next year, after receiving all regulatory approvals.

bTV is a very small part of the Czech fund's assets and even more significant problems related to losing market share to their biggest competitor would hardly cause anyone in Prague to worry and try to make a plan to defend their market positions.

Why worry- the advertising market is growing and the business is profitable.

Hekimyan's departure will most likely lead to the appointment of a person whose primary goal is to prevent a mass exodus of journalists. Nova TV regularly steals people from bTV, rarely people leva Nova TV to join bTV. The current situation is quite good for more theft in the same direction.

While I was working on this article, the news came out that Nova TV has attracted Desislava Proeva from BTV, who until recently was in the top management of BTV, and now she is the Director of "Strategic Partnerships and Business Development" at Nova TV.

Funds always sell

In general, investment funds do not hold onto ownership for very long. PPF will start selling assets if an opportunity to buy a large business in Western Europe or the US appears on the horizon. The reason will be purely financial - the new investment will have better prospects for growth, and the Czechs will not want to issue bonds to finance a new deal, because the interest rates are too high. At least that is what I think.

Politics and money have reduced television to a microphone stand

Politicians' fear of the influence of television was great already in the early 1990s. In the mid-1990s, when I worked at BNT, there was talk in the corridors about political parties that count the seconds of television time in "Panorama" and raise scandals if they happen to feel neglected.

From then on, things got worse and worse - many cable TV stations were closed, and journalists from the national TV stations were kicked out.

Therefore, today a normal news feed includes:

Accident on the Ruse-Byala road

Traffic congestion near Kulata

Murder after a domestic scandal in the center of Sofia

Statements from Parliament

Government Statements

International chronicle - at least there they have complete freedom

Flooded basement in a new cooperative in Sofia

Fire in the village of Seslavtsi

Searching for the 10 millionaire from Lom - unsuccessful - I'm really worried what would happen if they would have found him.

Sport - the only broadcast in which there is real journalism on a regular basis

The weather

And the non-existent in any normal democratic country show "Why Mr. Minister?".

There is no need to censor a television that fills its feeds with nonsense. The person holding the position of Director of News is responsible for the selection of news and the style of its coverage.

Are there cases of true journalism and what follows…

Yes. At the same time, however, there is also preventive pressure, and sometimes a direct reaction to certain reports. The yellow sites deal extensively with the personal lives of journalists from bTV, and in a much larger volume than what is devoted to their colleagues from Nova TV, not to mention BNT.

They marry them, divorce them, scandals are attributed to them. Television apparently does nothing to protect its employees. I don't know if the topic is even discussed. Apparently, if you're from bTV, you just have to accept that part of the price of being famous is to tolerate the writings in the yellow media.

The former head of BTV News, Venelin Petkov, told about another form of pressure - filing complaints at the headquarters of the owner company, which led to long internal investigations against employees of the television station.

The media watchdog- The regulator

There is no mechanism for evaluating journalistic work in national televisions. Only an independent analysis mechanism can give a relatively objective basis to the accusations about the quality of journalism in the national media and the existence of ban lists of people who should not be allowed on national air.

That doesn't happen with a survey paid for by the media itself, which can't possibly be paid for if it doesn't say everything is fine.

Who is more important - the owners or the journalists?

Media is very different from any other company. Every company has a management that the public perceives as responsible for its policy. In the media, especially radio and television, the real faces are those of the anchors and reporters.

For now, it seems that Anton Hekimyan's mayoral candidacy for the top management of bTV is something that should simply be forgotten with time and life should go on.

The extensive interview of the executive director of BTV Ralf Bartoleit with "24 Chasa" aimed to say exactly that. My experience in foreign companies makes me think that the purpose of was not aimed at Bulgaria, but rather to enter the press clipping of the owner PPF, so that Ms. Kellnerova and Mr. Smejc could read that in their Bulgarian TV everything is fine.

In order to have real active journalism that puts power under the microscope and protects the public interest, an owner is needed to give this mandate to journalists. They need not just support but protection when they confront those in power.

Therefore, criticism of the authorities is difficult to sneak through websites and social networks. Change won't happen anytime soon because no one wants to pay for it.

The major national media would be at a loss from protecting the public interest. It is more profitable to produce a show that creates a fictional reality - whether the participants will cook, sing, answer questions or play another version of “Fast, Brave, Skillful”, it does not really matter. There, quite safely, a moral position can be taken...

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Dear viewers,

We remind you that if you did not pay for this content, someone else did!