Disagreement over “minor but important issues” between Public Broadcasting Services and the organisers of the Malta Television Awards has caused TVM content producers to miss the deadline for submission of nominations on Wednesday.
An e-mail sent to producers yesterday afternoon by TVM head of programmes Reuben Zammit confirmed the two parties still have issues to iron out.
“Public Broadcasting Services Ltd and Mermaid Media Entertainment have not yet reached an agreement about the Malta Television Awards as there are still a few minor but important issues that need to be agreed upon,” Mr Zammit said.
In a similar e-mail he sent earlier this week, in which he told producers to “hold their horses”, Mr Zammit reminded them they were not to hand in any submissions of content produced for PBS “until instructed to do so by PBS only”.
The deadline for producers to submit their nominations had been extended from last Friday and it is not yet clear whether it will be extended again.
One producer said they were waiting for instructions from PBS on “when and how to proceed”.
If PBS pulls out of the awards, the race will be between the television stations owned by the two political stations, One TV and Net TV, apart from smaller stations such as Favourite Channel.
Producers would be unhappy about participating in TV awards without the presence of all stations as this would make it an unbalanced contest.
The issue between PBS and the organisers erupted last year when the state television channel complained on the organisation of the event and on certain aspects of the awards.
The matter was made worse when the most coveted award, the TV Station of the Year Award, was won by One TV even though this station and TVM had bagged the same number of awards on the night.
This spurred PBS to make a number of suggestions to change the way the event works and the way the awards are granted. Among its proposals is the inclusion of more awards, including fashion and motoring programmes, and replacing best male and female awards with gender-neutral prizes.
When contacted, PBS editor and head of news Natalino Fenech said the station was still awaiting feedback to a number of its proposals. “Without the feedback we are stuck. The deadline is not a problem because it can move. We agreed to a lot of things but there are still some pending issues on which we are still waiting for an official reply,” he said without elaborating.
“Last year, after the awards ceremony, we had expressed our grievances but we were only approached last week after an e-mail sent to producers telling them not to submit any nominations.”
Asked about the deadline, Dr Fenech said this was not a problem and that producers would need at least a week to prepare their submissions.
A spokesman for the organisers confirmed no decision had been taken and that any developments would be communicated.