following appeared in the January 2010 issue of this week in Palestine

The Need to Support the Fledging Television Industry in Palestine

By Daoud Kuttab

Television production is rather new in Palestine. Until 1994 Palestinians had access to regional and international television stations. Palestine TV was born with the Oslo Accords when Palestinian negotiators extracted the concession from the Israelis on the reasoning that radio and television were needed for the presidential and parliamentary elections that were due to take place as part of the PLO-Israeli Memorandum of Understanding. The same agreement had a clause for licensing other Palestinian radio and TV stations within the context of a joint Israeli-Palestinian technical committee. Over a period of 15 years Israel basically vetoed any properly licensed stations by refusing every request to allow the committee to meet. This, however, has not stopped the mushrooming of tens of local radio and TV stations that have “half” a license.

The stations have a piece of paper from the Palestinian Authority to work, but in terms of the International Telecommunications Union (the body that allots frequencies to countries), all the privately established stations are nothing more than pirate stations. This, of course, has resulted in the lack of any serious investment going into these stations and, conversely, the station owners have flaunted intellectual property regulations. Major football games, Hollywood movies, and Arab soaps are broadcast on these terrestrial stations without any restrictions.
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