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Benefits for Channel 14: How Legislation, Regulation, and Public Funds Bolstered the Government’s Propaganda Channel

>> Read the full position paper

Since the formation of the 37th government, Channel 14 has benefited from a series of legislative, regulatory, and economic concessions: extensions of temporary exemptions, reductions in license fees and distribution costs, relaxation of ownership restrictions and content obligations, lenient enforcement of violations, increased government advertising, and preferential access to senior government officials. Most of these measures were not formulated as benefits specifically intended for Channel 14, but rather as general arrangements ostensibly applicable to other entities as well. However, an examination of their cumulative effect shows that the channel was repeatedly the main beneficiary, or one of the main beneficiaries, and that a significant regulatory and economic asymmetry was created in its favor.

The document traces how temporary benefits, originally intended to assist a “microchannel” during an adjusment period, were repeatedly extended, while costs that were meant to be borne by the channel were, in part, shifted to the public. Under the arrangements governing Idan Plus, Channel 14 benefited from a substantial reduction in distribution costs and, during certain periods, from distribution free of charge. At the same time, it retained the ability to charge platforms for carrying its broadcasts, even though its competitors were required to provide their broadcasts to those same platforms without compensation. Communications Minister Karhi’s Broadcasting Law seeks to entrench many of these concessions within the new regulatory framework for the broadcasting market, including by raising the revenue ceiling for “microchannel” status from NIS 80 million to NIS 2 billion and easing ownership restrictions and regulatory obligations applicable to commercial channels generally.

These legislative measures are accompanied by institutional conduct that has further strengthened the channel. The document identifies a pattern of non-enforcement by the Second Authority for Television and Radio, including after temporary concessions had expired and during a period in which Channel 14’s eligibility to retain its “microchannel” status remained unresolved. At the same time, the volume of government advertising purchased from the channel has increased sharply, while the prime minister has granted the channel numerous interviews over the years and has largely refrained from granting interviews to the other major news channels. This pattern is further reinforced by the frequent appearances of ministers and coalition members on the channel and by the allocation of Knesset time and resources to proceedings dealing specifically with the channel’s affairs.

The cumulative picture extends beyond the question of an economic benefit to a particular media outlet. When the state alters the rules of the game, allocates public resources, and deploys its institutions in ways that repeatedly strengthen a media outlet identified with the government, while its competitors remain subject to more onerous obligations, both equality in the media market and the independence of the press are undermined. Free and pluralistic media is essential to effective public scrutiny of government. Blurring the line between government support and free competition in the media market ultimately affects the conditions under which the public receives information, forms its views, and holds elected officials to account.

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.