YLE’s funding decision cooking in secrecy

At the moment a discussion on a funding model for the Public Broadcaster is in full swing among leaders of all parliamentary groups in the parliament but Kiuru will not divulge the contents of the discussion to the public. Her fear is that if information is made public prematurely it might scupper efforts to reach a solution.

Kiuru is not concerned whether keeping it secret is democratic or not. “I am not worried whether it is democratic. Transparency has endangered many things. Two governments have tried arriving at a decision on YLE, but because it has been discussed in public no solution has been found”, she said.

“If I would begin mentioning the alternatives in public it would not lead to a solution. I will make a proposal and by Christmas a solution will be ready”.

For the past years how to secure funding for the public broadcasters has bedevilled politicians and nearly half-a- year into the office of the new government that was supposed make the funding decision, it is still uncertain on how YLE would continue its operations.

One option for financing the operations of YLE was to scrap the current system of television license fees to be replaced by a so-called media fee on all households irrespective of whether they owned television sets or not. After a short-lived consensus in the parliament, that solution was shelved by the then minister.

The other alternative model of financing which seems to command a broader appeal in parliament is to finance YLE’s operations from the state budget. Either way, the current government which assumed office in the summer was tasked with the responsibility for making a final decision on how to finance YLE operations from next year onwards.

More on that story:

State Broadcaster should be funded from public purse
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Limiting the sphere of public broadcasting is a bad idea
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Financing public broadcasting a hot potato for April elections
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Decision on how to finance Finnish broadcaster placed on hold
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