Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva officially launched the international Brazil TV channel from the Itamaraty Palace, seat of Foreign Affairs Ministry with the presence of representatives of the African community.

During the launch of the new channel Lula called the public TV of “My TV.” “I used to complain a lot with Franklin (Martins, Minister of Social Communication), “I used to say, but boy, you are so big and you cannot make my TV international. I’m leaving in seven months and perhaps I won’t see the full integration of our television. I would like to see it before leaving the government,” said the president.

Lula deflected criticism that TV Brasil had a strong influence of government. “You can make a quality TV that is not pro-government, but it’s not just opposition either. A TV that has insights to make correct political analysis. That tells the facts like they are without fear of displeasing or pleasing anybody. We want a TV that can show overseas a Brazil like it in fact is.”

According to the Brazilian presidency website, the Brazil TV will cater to the almost three million Brazilians living overseas.

The signal is expected to reach 49 African countries including those were Portuguese is the main language, Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Santo Tomé and Principe.

The signal in Portuguese language follows on the steps of other public broadcasting services such as Italy’s RAI; Britain’s BBC; Spain’s TVE; France’s TV5 and NHK from Japan.

The Brazilian government has signed a contract with the African pay TV operator Africa-Multichoice to distribute the signal.

Brazil already has an international television channel but it is private and belongs to the powerful media group Globo.

The government has announced that it intends to take TV Brazil “soon” to the United States, where most of the Brazilian expats are, as well as to the Japan, Europe and several countries in Latin America.

Mercopress

The new channel will target Brazilian emigrants, who currently total approximately 3 million, according to the government. Africa should be the first continent to receive the broadcasts, in 2010.

"It is going to be a channel with a schedule adjusted to the local times of the countries that will receive the broadcasts and with contents geared towards the Brazilian audience living abroad," said Cruvinel, during the 2nd Conference of Brazilian Communities Living Abroad.

According to the chairwoman, TV Brasil Internacional should operate by cable or subscription, with broadcasts scheduled to start next year. The programming grid should include shows screened in Brazil, adapted to local times, in addition to other contents made for the emigrants, some with their collaboration.

"The audience is as Brazilian as we are. Thus, same as the Brazilians have channels for communicating with the EBC, we want to create something like an e-mail address so that they may send guidelines, videos and suggestions," she explained.

The Brazilian minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, believes that by means of a Brazilian public television abroad, the government may expand its dialogue with the its nationals living abroad, favoring the promotion of consular services and of campaigns, such as encouraging participation in elections and education, through distance learning courses, for instance.

A resident of Orlando, in Florida, the Brazilian journalist Paulo Corrêa celebrates the initiative and calls for shows featuring Brazilian cuisine on TV, regional varieties and Brazilian culture in general.

"We cannot remain held hostage to Brazilian commercial television channels here," he claimed. "We want our children to become familiar with more diversity from Brazil, with the Brazilian people, rather than only with the soap operas show," he criticized.

The chairwoman of EBC stated that due to logistics issues pertaining to satellite availability, Africa should be the first continent to receive TV Brasil's international channel. However, according to her, reaching America is also part of the plans. For such, she called on the support of the National Congress and of the Ministry of Foreign Relations.

ABr

EBC president, veteran journalist Tereza Cruvinel, sees public television as the compliancy with a constitutional forecast, through which the Brazilian broadcast system should be complementary, including private, state-owned and public channels.

"The commercial networks fulfill the important part of Brazilian integration and state-owned stations are used legitimately for governments and other authorities to account for their activities.

"But we don't yet have a public television channel, a generalist one, with programs for all age groups, from children's programs to television news, being controlled by a mechanism with direct participation from the society, as is the case with our curator council," said Cruvinel.

According to the journalism manager at EBC, Eduardo Castro, it will be through suggestions and interactive participation of viewers that the program grid will be built and adapted progressively: one of the mechanisms to be launched will also allow for viewers to send material in video format, for possible broadcasting during programs.

The main engagement of TV Brasil, according to Tereza, will be pluralism: "We are neither going to fight nor to dispute the audience with other television channels.

"The channel is coming to add. If you do not want to see football on commercial television and prefer a documentary on public TV, you will have this alternative."

ABr

The Brazilian Communication Company, responsible for operating the public television concern in Brazil, was created in October by a provisional presidential decree.

The company's principal enterprise is TV Brasil, a new public TV channel which started operating on December 2, 2007. The provisory decree (medida provisória) creating the public broadcasting system must be approved by Congress before becoming law.

As of November 30, legislators had presented 132 amendments to the  decree. The proposals must be voted on by House representatives and senators before becoming law.

Article 19 calls the Federal Government's initiative an important step toward establishing a public broadcasting system in Brazil. However, it cautions that the presidential decree has failed to set the basis for a genuine public service.

According to international standards, public broadcasters must be protected against political or commercial interference. Their editorial independence must be respected, and their programming should be balanced, impartial, and serve the public interest.

In order to secure independence, appropriate structures must be in place. Also as a way of guaranteeing independence, public broadcasters should have pluralistic and independent governing boards.

Under the current arrangement, the broadcaster remains under excessive control of the Executive Branch, which may undermine its independence and impartiality. Article 19 is urging Brazilian legislators to address the current shortcomings and weaknesses of the presidential decree.

– The Presidential Provisory Decree 398 / 2007 states in article 2 (5) that public broadcasting services in Brazil must have "autonomy from the Federal Government to decide on content production, programming and distribution." However, article 5 of the decree, which creates the public broadcasting company, subordinates it to the Presidency's Social Communication Secretariat. Such an arrangement could undermine the broadcaster's operational and administrative autonomy, with negative effects on independence and impartiality.

– According to Decree 398, the new public broadcasting company will be managed by an Administrative Council and a Director. The broadcaster will also have a Fiscal Council and a Board. Under the terms of the decree, the Brazilian President appoints the Director and Executive Director of the public broadcasting company, who are responsible for the public television company's general direction and coordination. Four out of the five members of the Administrative Council are appointed by the Executive Branch, as well as two out of three members of the Fiscal Council. Under this arrangement, the public broadcaster may be vulnerable to political interference.

– The Board (Conselho Curador) of the public television company consists of four ministers from the Federal Government, one staff representative, to be elected by the public television company's staff, as well as 15 civil society representatives. All civil society representatives of the broadcaster's Board, however, have been appointed by the Brazilian President, without any civil society consultation. Although the statute regulating the activities of the public broadcasting company (Decree 6.246) makes reference to a public consultation process to renew the members of the board, the rules for consultation have not been detailed.

– The independence of public broadcasters is also to be guaranteed through the adoption of funding schemes that guarantee the free flow of information and ideas, and the promotion of public interest. Decree 398 creating the Brazilian Communication Company establishes that it may obtain funding from various sources, including direct government subsidies, sponsorship from private and public institutions, some types of institutional advertisements, and donations. However, the decree establishes no percentages for each type of funding, and fails to determine how they may be used – for instance, if government direct funding or advertisements can be applied to fund program production, or only infrastructure and technical costs. Article 19 recommends the use of specific fees as a way of guaranteeing the public television company's independence.

– Although the decree recognizes diverse funding sources, the vast majority of the 2008 funding will consist of direct government subsidies, according to information provided by the public broadcasting company. The Federal Government has announced that it will invest 350 million Brazilian reais (US$ 196 million) in the public broadcasting system in 2008. The funding will come from the Federal Government's general budget, which needs to be approved each year. According to Article 19, direct public subsidy should not be used to fund program production but should instead be used to defray infrastructure and other technical costs.

Article 19 also argues that the public television company should be primarily accountable to the Brazilian public, both in terms of content broadcast and resources spent. Annual reports should therefore include financial information, but also information related to the objectives of the broadcaster and the extent to which they have been met.

These reports should also present objectives for the upcoming year, editorial policy, description of activities undertaken, a list of programs broadcast by the public channel that were prepared by independent producers, as well as information on complaints by viewers. Such reports should be transparent and widely distributed, concludes the freedom of expression organization.

Article 19 – www.article19.org

Experimental transmission of the V World Social Forum (WSF 2005) marked the first steps of TV Brasil – International Public Channel. During the six days of the Forum, over 90 hours of programming were aired.

Broadcasts included live coverage of the principal activities of the event, 26 exclusive interviews, 15 debates, and a daily 30-minute news report.

The studio set up by TV Brasil in Porto Alegre, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, received the diversity of intellectuals and participants who attended the WSF 2005.

Important thinkers, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, from Argentina, Portuguese sociologist, Boaventura de Souza Santos, and Manuel Castells, from Spain, were interviewed by the TV Brasil team.

Politicians, representatives of non-governmental organizations, performers, and leaders of social movements also had a chance to expound their ideas.

Themes such as South American integration, Latin American dictatorships, and the erradication of hunger and poverty were probed in greater depth in the debates.

Among the high points of the conferences that were broadcast live were those of the Portuguese writer, José Saramago, the Uruguayan, Eduardo Galeano, and the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.

The public could also accompany these presentations in real time on the website of the Agência Brasil.

Each day the TV Brasil team, made up of 40 professionals, strove to offer a diversified panorama of the event, which brought together over 155 thousand people from 122 different nations from around the world.

The day’s most important news items were covered on Brazil News, a half-hour news report shown on TV Brasil at 9:30 P.M. and retransmitted by NBR (Radiobrás’s cable TV station), TV Senado (Senate TV), and TV Justiça (Court TV).

The Porto Alegre experience and the contacts made possible through this trial run will contribute to the implantation of the project to establish TV Brasil’s transmissions on a permanent basis.

The forecast is for the Brazilian international channel to begin these transmissions by midyear.

“The evaluation of this experimental phase will serve TV Brasil’s management committee as a concrete reference to define the programming we want to broadcast. How the team should be organized and, most importantly, what was the receptivity to the programming, the quality of the satellite signal, and our efforts,” says José Roberto Garcez, head of the Radiobrás news department and member of TV Brasil’s management committee.

The trial run was the new Brazilian state broadcaster’s pilot project directed especially at the countries of South America, for the purpose of fostering integration among the nations of the continent.

TV Brasil represents an unprecedented initiative uniting the communication organs of the three branches of the government: TV Justiça (Court TV), TV Câmara (Chamber of Deputies TV), TV Senado (Senate TV), and Radiobrás (Brazilian Communications Enterprise, linked to the Executive).

Translation: David Silberstein
Agência Brasil