First and foremost let me just say that I’m the last person who should be writing about this. After all, I’ve forgotten the last time I actually watched TVM, or any of the local stations for that matter.

This leaves me in a strange position where in life I live and work in Malta, and in my virtual TV life I share experiences, taste, news and views with a virtual community of millions of people abroad.

So the end of TimesTalk is as significant to me as the start of the English Premier league next week (Editor’s note: The English Premier League began August 13; Me: See what I mean?)

And yet the abrupt end of TimesTalk should matter to me. As should Salvu Mallia’s programme, the start of a number of new programmes on TVM, and the continued appearance of others which have long past their sell-by dates.

The thing is, one of the mainstays of the creative industry in any country is the broadcasting media. It provides jobs, opportunities and a creative avenue to literally thousands of people, be they musicians, actors, writers or those in the advertising business. TV and radio also have a way of capturing the nation’s imagination, and of shaping it on a daily basis in a way that no other media can.

Its all-pervasiveness may have been dented by new forms of media such as the internet, but it still has the power to set, or at least shape, the country’s agenda - and it can still influence, if not dominate, the country’s mindset.

That is why, the world over, having control of the broadcast media is one of the first priorities of any dictatorship. And not just dictatorships. Take a look at our neighbour Italy. One of the first things that Silvio Berlusconi did, on becoming Prime Minister, was to take control of RAI.

Within months of his arrival, heads of stations, programme presenters, and news editors, were lined up on stakes around the Campi D’Oglio - the first scalps to yet another quintessentially Italian adventure.

The mention of Italy is not coincidental.

When the Nationalist Government first came up with formulating the basis of a more pluralistic broadcast service back in the late 1980s, beginning of the 1990s, it was the Italian model they looked to.

This model was based not around the concept of a public broadcasting organization that served the people, but one that served politicians. So in Italy, RAI 1 served the needs of the then Demo-Christian Party, RAI 2 served the needs of the then Socialist Party, and RAI 3 served the needs of the then Communist Party. By ‘served’ I really mean ‘towed the party line’.

The decline and eventual fall of these parties only served to throw RAI into further confusion and turbulence, so that nowadays the slightest of shifts in political power sees a revolving door of programmes, presenters, editors and controllers entering and exiting.

The result is that to this day whenever I dare switch to one of the three RAI channels I am struck by the paucity of programming and the lack of quality. And yes I know that this is a personal bias, but realistically all one has to do is see what the export ratio versus import ratio of Italian TV programmes is to get confirmation of what I’m saying.

PBS is a public broadcasting service which makes the viewers the shareholders of the service, and, as shareholders, they want to be told why decisions are taken

But back to Malta. Here the thinking was let’s give the two main political parties a station each and let’s make PBS neutral.

The result was that the two political stations were allowed (and are still allowed) to spew out all kinds of lies, half-truths and blatant propaganda with nary a word from that dog-end of a bygone era: the Broadcasting Authority, whilst PBS is leaned-on to remain ‘neutral', for which one really should read ‘neutered’.

But that is only the half the story.

In one other brainwave of the past Nationalist government, the structure of PBS became particularly Byzantine. On the one hand you had a board of directors, on the other you had a CEO and his/her management team, and finally (I’ve run out of hands) you had an ‘Editorial Board’ to select programmes.

All three were to be chosen by the government (i.e: the politicians) of the day. So please stand up and be counted Messrs Austin Gatt and Lawrence Gonzi. As Oliver Hardy would say, “That's another fine mess you've gotten me into”.

Thanks to this set up everyone and no one will take the blame. And let’s face it, it is blame we are looking at, for there is very little credit to be had.

Not only that, no one, it seems, needs to feel accountable. Just look at what a certain Charles Flores, chairman of aforementioned ‘Editorial Board’ had to say about the recent shenanigans of winners and losers at PBS. Mr Flores is a columnist for ‘another English-Language newspaper’. A couple of weeks ago he started his column as follows:

I am duty and ethically bound to steer clear of the current situation concerning the scheduling or rescheduling of television programmes on the public stations, something from which I hope I can be exempted by my readers.

Well, actually, no, you are duty and ethically bound to tell viewers why choices are made. After all PBS receives public-funding, or as it used to be known in the golden days flus il-poplu. It is a public broadcasting service which makes the viewers the shareholders of the service, and, as shareholders, they want to be told why decisions are taken.

When the BBC lost a ream of popular programmes, they did so because of financial constraints - and this was made public. The cancellation of a programme is usually based on a number of factors, including popularity (or lack thereof), quality (or lack thereof), and costs (usually more thereof).

So here are a few questions for Mr Flores:

1. Which of the three was it that saw the cancellation of some programmes and/or the retention of others?
2. Was it a convenient coincidence that these changes were made just after Anton Attard was pushed - sorry - resigned to be replaced by John Bundy as CEO?
3. And this is perhaps the most important one: how can you ever think you will be remotely taken seriously, if programmes are commissioned or cancelled literally a month before they start being aired? How can you expect PBS to offer quality programming (after all PBS is supposed to be the gold standard of broadcasting in Malta) when there is evidently such mediocrity at the top?

Oh and one last word to that sorry group called the board of directors. I seem to remember how shocked you were when a month ago you found yourselves with John Bundy in your laps and there were whispers of resignations. It seems those whispers were really whimpers after all. And once again the ones to suffer are those in the creative industries who are trying to make a go of it. Well, I hope you’re proud of yourselves.