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Government Promotes Bill Aimed at Diverting Advertising Budgets to Channel 14

>> Click here to read the full position paper

The current government has been doing its utmost to introduce significant changes to Israel’s media market that portend harm to the free media and heightened governmental control. This is being done via private member bills seeking legislative amendments specifically designed to ensure benefits for pro-government media bodies, particularly Channel 14.

Bill To Reduce Concentration in the Media Advertising Sector-2025, a private bill submitted by MK Avichay Boaron and other Likud MKs, seeks to set quotas on the purchase of ad airtime from commercial channels and the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) by media buying agencies, which are mostly owned by major advertising companies and are used by them to purchase ad airtime on broadcasting platforms.

Although this is a complex issue involving intricate economic questions and competition rules, the bill does not present any factual data or professional economic analysis, at a time when professional studies of recent years show no economic justification for imposing the type of restrictions proposed. Moreover, the bill seeks to revive a regulation that was in place in the past but was suspended and is still under professional review.

One of the main goals of the bill is to redirect advertising budgets to smaller channels. Even if the explanatory notes do not explicitly mention it by name, there is no ignoring the efforts made in recent years by the government and legislators to specifically promote the interests of Channel 14. This being the case, there is real concern that, like other previous legislative initiatives, the improper purpose of this bill is to benefit Channel 14 and increase its revenues by diverting advertising budgets to it.

Zulat opposes the bill, given that it consists of measures that infringe on freedom of occupation without any professional justification or foundation, for the improper purpose of helping Channel 14 increase its revenues by diverting advertising budgets to it and harming the operations of other commercial channels and the IPBC.

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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.