edition-dw-akademie-in-the-service-of-the-public-functions-and-transformation-of-media-in-developing-countries-pdf

On the contrary, some MNB employees are convinced thatthey have to serve the president, no matter what. 56 However,it should be noted that there are also critical voices and welleducatedpeople working for MNB.Financing, Management, and Newsroom StructuresAs mentioned earlier, MNB has three main sources of funding:direct government subsidies, license fees and advertising.According to MNB, out of its total budget, 51% is governmentfunding (“national treasury”), 21% is revenues from licensefees from Mongolian households, 26% comes from “programsproduced by special request, collaborations etc.” and 2%stems from advertising. 57 Information provided by the PressInstitute reveals that out of MNB’s annual budget generatedthrough own revenues, 58 46% is income from license fees and43% comes from sponsored and paid-for programs as well asadvertisement. 10% of the own revenue comes from the rentof premises and facilities and other small business activities. 59Both international experts and all national stakeholders interviewedfor this study point out that funding remains one ofthe main problems that impede MNB’s transformation. Thereare difficulties concerning all three major sources of funding:First, as the numbers above show, MNB is heavily dependenton direct government subsidies. This is highly problematicalin terms of the broadcaster’s independence, adequacyand stability, particularly as MNB has to negotiate this grantfrom the government on an annual basis. This gives the governmentenormous power and enables it to manipulate andpressure MNB, which has to “beg” 60 politicians for money andbasically depends on their current mood. Generally, as Mendelputs it: “Indeed, in most respects a direct governmentgrant is the worst form of funding for a public broadcaster.” 61Second, another reason for MNB’s heavy dependence onstate funding is the fact that Mongolia has a population ofonly about 2.8 million people, of which a high percentage isnomadic. So, even if all Mongolian households, including thenomads, paid license fees, it would not be sufficient. 62 On topof that, currently the license fees are very low. One optionwould be to increase the fees, though this is never popular –and even less in a country where the public is not generallyaware of the role of public service broadcasting. Moreover,MNB faces problems with the collection of license fees. Especiallyin rural areas, MNB staff still knock on people’s doors oftenwithout success, a system which is far from efficient. Thelarger part of the fees, however, is collected through electricitybills with the help of power companies, with which MNB hascontracts. Undraa Bat-Ochir, Director of MNB’s DepartmentStrategy and Finance, laments that the broadcaster has to begthe companies to help collect the fees and thus becomes dependenton them: “The power providers want 20% of the collectedamount for their performance, next year they maybewant 25% and so on, and we cannot do anything about it.” 63And third, MNB does not get enough funding throughadvertising because the law only allows non-profit ads. 64 Allmonitoring studies conducted by the Press Institute foundout, however, that MNB actually broadcasts commercial ads,although its total advertisement time does not reach 2%. Thestudies revealed that within the time limit allowed by law, 89%of all the ads broadcast are commercial. 65Another source of revenue that MNB is highly dependent onare sponsored and paid-for programs. 66 Often, these are actuallyhidden ads, which are – in principle – prohibited by law. Accordingto the blogger Tserenjav Demberel, during prime timemore than half of the programs are paid and commissioned. 67The government and the parliament also use these programsfor their purposes. Further, half of all news items in news programsare paid-for, generating a new genre, the so-called “businessnews.” The programs do not talk about business, but arewholly financed by businesses. 68 Although in most cases thepayment is made transparent at the beginning of the broadcast,these programs constitute a big problem, since they endangerboth MNB’s independence and its credibility.Recently, MNB introduced a new salary system, which isbased on the scheme for salaries of public officials. Before that,the middle level, i.e., the administration, received a fixed salaryand journalists got a basic salary plus a bonus, depending ontheir performance and number of publications. Since this wasconsidered unfair, the new system was established and noweveryone gets a fixed amount. 69 Broadly speaking, journalistsare poorly paid in Mongolia, which is true for commercial mediaas well as for MNB. According to an MNB journalist interviewed,the average wage of journalists lies between 450,000and 500,000 Tugrik (approx. 190–215 Euros) per month; 70only very few journalists earn one million Tugrik, i.e., 430 Eurosmonthly. Journalists who have been with MNB for morethan ten years and occupy a leading position receive around800,000 Tugrik (approx. 340 Euros). 71 Since very often journalistscannot live on their salary they depend on so-calledgatekeeper contracts and thus support the system of paid-forprograms. These gatekeeper contracts include deals betweenjournalists and politicians or companies, which force the journalistto only report positively about them, negatively abouttheir competitors, or both.Still under consideration with MNB, although scantilyplanned at the time of writing, is that of a single newsroomfor its television production. To date, there is no centralizeddesk that delivers news and current affairs stories for the newsshows. Each department (culture, business, and so on) workswithin its own domain – with little cooperation. MNB’s managementhas identified the organization of such central structuresas a priority task, though with little to no measurableresult so far.By request of the Mongolian government and due to internationaldevelopments, another restructuring project hasbeen approached. MNB is planning to launch digital transmissionstarting as early as July 2014. To date, however, the broadcasterhas developed neither a stringent policy, nor a realistic102