The communications (broadcasting) bill, an effort to reform Israel’s communications landscape and open it up to greater competition, passed its first vote in the Knesset overnight on Monday by a margin of 54-47.
“Despite the opposition of the tycoons and the tsunami of fake news, the winners are the consumers, who will gain more channels, more opinions and with less money,” said Knesset member Shlomo Karhi, Israel’s Minister of Communications, who introduced the bill, hailing the passage of its first reading.
He called the bill’s reforms “a historic revolution for freedom of opinion and consumer choice,” and criticized Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, and others seeking to control the “marketplace of opinions.”
Baharav-Miara had said the bill “endangers the image of the free media in Israel.”
Karhi dismissed the criticism, countering that “the law is expected to bring about a more competitive, diverse and transparent market, while eliminating bureaucratic involvement in the content and business model and providing a platform for all opinions in Israeli society.”
The bill’s major innovation is to close the existing communications regulators: the Second Authority for Television and Radio, a public body that until recently regulated commercial TV and radio broadcasts, and the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, which represents and cultivates public interests in multichannel television for subscribers.
In their place, the bill establishes a new regulatory body: the Broadcast Communications Authority.
It would be supervised by the Council for the Regulation of Audio-Visual Content, with the communications minister appointing four of its seven members.
The bill now goes to the Knesset House Committee. It will decide which committee to send the bill for additional debate and review, a necessary step before the legislation can move back to the Knesset plenum for a second and third vote to become law.
Karhi is reportedly eager that the bill not be sent to the Economic Affairs Committee headed by Likud MK David Bitan, who torpedoed an earlier reform effort.
