Impact Assessment: Public Broadcasting in Picture

The recommendations the Court of Audit had made in 2008 in its report Public Broadcasting in Picture have been largely followed up. This is not yet the case, though, in the following areas:

Supervision by the Media Authority insufficiently risk based
We concluded in our audit of 2008 that the Dutch Media Authority had not carried out a risk analysis and had not developed a strategy on supervision. It has since carried out a risk analysis but its strategy is still largely generic in nature: the Media Authority analyses and assesses the financial statements of all national public broadcasters. It spends relatively little time on risk-based, in-depth investigation of one of more broadcasters.

Still overlaps between supervisors
In our original audit we had observed that there were overlaps in the supervisory activities of the Media Authority, the Commission for the Integrity of Public Broadcasting (CIPO) and Netherlands Public Broadcasting (NPO). At senior level and on the initiative of the Media Authority and the CIPO, some attention has since been paid to this matter. The minister also made a proposal to clarify the responsibilities of the NPO and the Media Authority in the event of the advance financing of broadcasters being terminated. This measure has reduced the overlap to only a limited degree.

Supervisory boards chiefly critical advisers
We had expressed doubts in our 2008 report about the powers of the public broadcasters' supervisory boards, many of which were being set up at the time. In 2010 we had concluded that an independent outlook is a key factor in effective supervision. Supervisory boards appear to be less independent if they include former executive directors, especially if the former executive directors are amply rewarded. Some supervisory boards, moreover, could be more proactive if they were guided by their own risk analyses. More so than at present, such analyses would ideally identify not only external risks but also risks in the internal control of business processes, for example regarding agreements on the remuneration of presenters and contracts with producers.

The minister, who is seeking to reduce the supervisory burden, wrote in response to our Impact Assessment that activities were actually coordinated and denied that he had taken insufficient action. In our opinion, however, more progress can still be made. In addition to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Media Authority, CIPO, NPO and the supervisory boards of national broadcasters responded to our investigation.