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This position paper was written in response to MK Eli Dallal’s bill to amend the Second Authority for Television and Radio Law (Expanding Diversity of Radio Broadcasts-2024; hereinafter, “the second bill”), which was approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs on 30 June 2024. At present, national radio stations in Israel are all publicly owned. However, with the endorsement of the Minister of Communications, this bill would change this situation and allow the creation of private and commercially-owned national radio stations, which would broadcast outside the regional area stipulated in their franchise.
The bill would enable the minister to grant national radio franchises as he pleases, without a bidding process and/or any other procedure to ensure an equitable distribution of a limited public resource, thus harming the free media, competition, equal opportunity, and freedom of occupation, while concurrently bolstering “government-friendly” outlets.