PBS ordered to reveal costs of Malta Eurovision Song Contest to TMI by Data Commissioner
Malta’s Information and Data Protection Commissioner has ordered the Public Broadcasting Services to reveal the costs of this year’s Malta Eurovision Song Contest to The Malta Independent.This comes after the company which runs state broa
Malta’s Information and Data Protection Commissioner has ordered the Public Broadcasting Services to reveal the costs of this year’s Malta Eurovision Song Contest to The Malta Independent.
This comes after the company which runs state broadcaster Television Malta refused a Freedom of Information request filed earlier this year. Deciding on an appeal to the decision filed by The Malta Independent, the Information and Data Protection Commissioner Ian Deguara backed the newspaper’s arguments.
The Malta Independent had requested a list detailing the financial costings of the Malta Eurovision Song Contest which culminated in a Grand Final, held on Saturday 3 February 2024. This list was to include a breakdown of the costs by item, and to whom the expenses were paid.
The request was filed two days after the Grand Final took place.
PBS rejected the request, citing legal provisions which it said exempted it from revealing the requested information because it was commercial in nature.
The decision was first appealed through the standard internal complaints procedure, where this newsroom – assisted by lawyer Therese Comodini Cachia, through the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation – argued that a “public entity cannot expect to be free from public scrutiny on how public funds received by it were used.”
It was further noted that the legal provision which PBS claimed exonerated it from public scrutiny of its use of public funds “does not provide it with an absolute exemption from the obligations of providing access to information in the public interest.”
PBS replied by saying that it had nothing to add and reiterated its refusal, prompting The Malta Independent to file an appeal with the IDPC, arguing that the Eurovision Song Contest is not a commercial private event but a public service, the responsibility of which lies with public service media.
This means that the information sought is not exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, and the fact that PBS may have chosen to fulfil its public service role by contracting third parties does not automatically exclude that activity from its public role – and neither does any profit or income generated from it.
The IDPC said that when seeking submissions from PBS, the state broadcaster merely “provided a copy of the documentation requested by the applicant [this newspaper]” and said that when it requested PBS to confirm whether it would like to argue its case, no reply was received.
The IDPC ruled that there was precedent to support the argument that PBS is not a commercial entity, but is a public authority and therefore has the same obligations as any other public authority under the Freedom of Information Act.
The IDPC ruled in favour of The Malta Independent, and PBS must now hand over the information requested within 20 working days.
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