Two of the three main stations have pulled out of the Malta Television Awards, leaving One TV and the smaller stations in the contest.
The state television station, PBS, confirmed in a short statement last night it would not take part in this year’s awards after failing to reach an agreement with the organisers over how the prizes were given.
This was closely followed by a decision from the Nationalist Party’s station, Net TV, which said it was also pulling out because a contest without a main player was “not a national contest”.
This development, which in the case of PBS has long been coming, forced Mermaid Media Entertainment Ltd, the organisers of the awards to meet with urgency last night to decide whether to hold this year’s event or postpone it to later on in the year, allowing time for discussion.
Noelene Miggiani, one of the organisers, said last night that the meeting was postponed till this morning.
PBS said it strongly believed in awards for different programme categories because these helped boost talent and the local TV industry. “PBS feels that, for such awards to have the desired credibility, these should be organised under the wings of the Broadcasting Authority. PBS is willing to collaborate so that such awards would be organised, even later this year.”
PBS and the organisers differed on the way the awards were organised this year.
The two had discussed changes to regulations in the wake of what happened during last year’s award ceremony when TVM and One TV bagged the same number of awards but the latter was proclaimed television station of the year, the most acclaimed award on the night.
When contacted, Net TV media manager Louiselle Vassallo said: “We decided to pull out too because we believe that if not all the television stations are there, it does not remain a credible event. This was a last-minute decision, which we took as soon as we discovered PBS had pulled out.”
When contacted last night, One Productions chairman Jason Micallef went “ballistic” over the decision of the two competing television stations, saying this was a “pure boycott”. He said while he still could not understand what the problem with PBS was, as it had not raised any issues last year or the year before, he could also not accept Net TV should pull out. “Did they know they wouldn’t have had a chance against us,” he asked sarcastically.
He pointed his finger at PBS CEO Anton Attard, who he said was “managing PBS as if it were Net TV”.
Mr Micallef said One TV was still in the contest but would wait to see what the organisers would have decided.