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

However, thanks to the input of experts (provided by Internewsand others), via financial assessment and consultancies, OTRKis in a better position to negotiate its case with the ministriesand work towards more autonomy in the budget planning.Gaps are occasionally filled with the help of internationaldonors. The broadcaster has recently managed to attract agrant of US$ 800,000 from the Japanese government, to beused to upgrade their technical facilities in the move towardsdigitalization. In general, aside from the state budget, the othermain revenue source is advertising. The outlet’s InternationalRelations and Protocol Department is very active in exploringalternative revenue sources and, apart from looking for partnersand grants, it established a PR section three months agowhich is working, for example, to boost their public profile andraise their value as an advertising partner. Some rebrandingwork is being done since the head of the department felt thattheir most popular logos, such as that for the Kids’ Channel,were being widely misused. 75The advertising industry in general in Kyrgyzstan is underdeveloped,and so whilst it is also a source of income, it’sneither sizeable nor dependable. It is poorly regulated, theonly restrictions under the Advertising Act being that “advertisingvolumes should not exceed 20% of airtime and 20% ofnewspaper space.” 76 These regulations are neither monitored,nor are violations sanctioned. OTRK’s main TV channel has advertisingblocks of 5 or 6 minutes, once every two hours forthe larger part of the day, then rising to half-hourly or hourlyintervals during evening peak viewing times. With a total of17.5 hours of airtime daily, their advertising volume on theprimary channel stays within prescribed limits. It is perhapsworth noting that the Joint Media Committee has had enormoussuccess in both establishing the worth of the country’sadvertising market and helping it to realise its potential andexpand rapidly. 77News programming is at the heart of OTRK’s value withaudiences: Focus groups set up by the Joint Media Committee,with the help of USAID and Internews, established that byand large, audiences like the news and agree that the qualityof news programming with regard to reporting and politicalbalance is improving. 78 There are concerns about the extentof regional coverage, and about the quality of reporting. Accordingto one interviewee, there are major inconsistenciesin the quality of the programs, and still too many instancesof items being repeated a day later, items being insufficientlyresearched, with only one source, and so on. But this, she felt,was down to poor management, the head of news programmingbeing an excellent journalist but an insufficiently experiencedmanager. Management, she insisted, is an area that stillrequires particular attention, in the newsroom as elsewhere. 79Perception, Participation and Public EngagementCivil society in general in Kyrgyzstan is very supportive of themedia and guards basic rights such as freedom of expressionjealously. There are numerous media watchdog organizationsand journalists’ associations, there is a media ombudsman,and various forms of legal help for journalists, although a decreasein the availability of aid and the number of donors inrecent years means many NGOs are struggling to find funding.Also, online information about the activities of media NGOsseems to show, according to observers, that “almost all of theiractivities take place in the regions.” 80 Online-based organizationsin particular become very vocal if media freedoms lookthreatened by state interference – which happens often. 81 Thelack of organization, however, sometimes makes civil societygroups vulnerable to political influence. The liveliness of publicdebate – on all societal issues, not just pertaining to media –is greatly supported by the robustness and ready availabilityof online platforms.Audiences tend to welcome opportunities to vocalizetheir wishes and expectations, rare as these are, and there isno lack of feedback: Quite early on, town-hall meetings betweencitizens and the staff of OTRK were organized with themediation of Internews. OTRK has an audience feedback section,fed partly through a public reception area on the groundfloor of the building itself, where members of the public candeliver complaints and other feedback in person, partly bya telephone system, and partly via online platforms such asTwitter and Facebook. The online feedback in particular hasbeen hugely improved, with input from an expert: BektourIskender of Kloop Media was sent in (an intervention initiatedby Internews) to train OTRK editors in the effective useof their Facebook and Twitter accounts and other online facilities,which were already in place but languishing unusedthrough lack of both expertise and interest. And the feedbackdoesn’t simply get ‘filed,’ it is acted upon: in an oft-cited example,during the Sochi Winter Olympics, the broadcaster’s twocommentators (one for Russian and one for Kyrgyz) were veryquickly replaced when complaints about their delivery (tooslow, not professional enough) began to pile up, in particularon the Facebook page. New commentators were put in place,the audience response was positive, and the whole episodewas highlighted in local newspapers as an example of goodbroadcasting practice. 82Audience and market research is still very underdevelopedin Kyrgyzstan, although the Joint Media Committee is makinghuge progress in this area with the help of USAID. What ratingsinformation there is shows that public radio Yntymak isvery popular in the south of the country and widely listened to.Osh-based ElTR is also the main TV channel in the south, whereit is primarily based, and is the second TV broadcaster on theoverall ratings list. 83 According to its own testimony, this is notso much due to quality as to technical issues, mainly transmissionproblems. Its response to feedback is limited, in the DG’swords, because it is “currently more focused on content.” 8460