The Romanian State Television, the war over bankruptcy

On May 3rd, that is one week after the passing of the vote of no-confidence which brought down the government, the Board of Directors of the TVR had a meeting and its members decided, upon the suggestion of Claudiu Brânzan, board member representing the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the dismissal of Dan Radu from the position of head of Editorial Production and Programs, by eliminating it from the structure of the institution.

According to "Active Watch", Claudiu Brânzan justified his proposal as follows: "The decisions which Mr. Dan Radu made have caused the ratings of the shows of the TVR to drop. Also included on the programming schedule were shows that not only did not perform, but they actually caused the advertising revenues of the TVR to drop".

It would seem that on that meeting, the members of the Board of Directors asked the chairman of the TVR, Mr. Alexandru Lăzescu, to make a decision on the position of Director of the TVR news, which has remained vacant after the departure of Rodica Culcer in the beginning of the year. Back then, the TVR organized several competitions for the filling of the position, but no candidate has been selected.

After the meeting of the Board of May 3rd, Dan Radu accused the PSD, in the "Evenimentul Zilei" newspaper, of "driving a tank through the Romanian Television", and that it has begun blackmailing the president of the TVR, Alexandru Lăzescu, in order to get him to appoint Claudiu Lucaci as head of the DEI (The Department of Information Shows), without holding a contest for the position, in the stead of Rodica Culcer who vacated that position a few months ago.

Dan Radu commented: "The decision of the Board of Directors was abusive and has no justification. It is a < < gift > > I received on the Day of the Freedom of the Press, from a politically appointed Board of Directors".

Dan Radu came to the TVR together with Alexandru Lăzescu and initially served as advisor to the CEO, later becoming director of Editorial production and Programs.

The position of director of the DEIS is temporarily held by Anca Lăzărescu, following the dismissal of Rodica Culcer in January.

• Lucia Hossu Longin, member of the Board of Directors of TVR from the National Liberal Party (PNL): The name of Claudiu Lucaci was not mentioned during that meeting

Talking about that meeting, Lucia Hossu Longin said that the name of Lucaci never came up and that some people are fabricating stories. She said that this was only about people who did not perform well being replaced: "When certain people do not have any results for a year, you need to allow someone else to do the job. Dan Radu prevented things from being done, he was the jack of all trades".

In a statement called "The edited movie of a so-called execution", Mrs. Lucia Hossu Longin said: "I was flabbergasted upon reading the article in «Evenimentul Zilei», called «The movie of a 50s style execution», which was a vicious attack against the Board of Directors of the Romanian Television. I am a member of the Board of Directors of the TVR appointed by the National Liberal Party. On the meeting of May 3rd, I didn't see any tank (metaphorically speaking), no blackmail, no rampaging rhinos, nor any other attacks. We voted on the proposal of the PSD group to disband the structure and the position of Editorial Production and Programming Director. This was after a democratic talk in which the only ones who opposed the proposed measure were Paul Călin Botez and Alexandru Lăzescu. The vote was peaceful, and there was no pressure. Did the great journalists of Evenimentul Zilei not care about the real reasons which caused for the replacement of Mr. Dan Radu to be requested, and what the real subject of the «movie» in question was? - the fact that this structure, which Mr. Dan Radu was leading, had come to overrule the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board, all the strategic moves of the TVR, the program schedules, the budgets, the fact that he would take shows off the air on a whim, and make up others, and that he would conclude disadvantageous contracts (such as the one for the "Star factory" show). He made the decision to move the TVR news bulletin from 20:00 (with a rating of 3.4 points) to 19:53 (which caused the ratings to drop to less than 1 point) and overall, through a disastrous editorial policy, to cause an unimaginable drop in the ratings of the TV stations, and to make them uncompetitive. Obviously, since the TVR produces programs, not nails, if they are bad, and if the editorial policy of Dan Radu is causing the institution to lose a lot of money, what should the Board of Directors do?! Should they just let this collapse continue?! The name of Claudiu Lucaci wasn't mentioned during this meeting, there wasn't anyone shouting: «We want Lucaci as head of the news department», the agenda of the meeting did not include a discussion on the position of head of the DEIS, which will be the object of another Board meeting. The failures of Mr. Dan Radu were too big to allow us to postpone the decision to eliminate the position of editorial production director. Perhaps the task of being the «boss» of a public television caused Mr. Dan Radu to become imbalanced! It overwhelmed him. The organizational structure which he led with the three positions it contained proved to be a risky venture for the public television, an experiment which did not result in the production of premium shows, nor in higher ratings, nor in economic effectiveness, but only in gridlocks and incalculable losses. I am sorry about the failure of Mr. Dan Radu! It was not the board of directors that nominated him for this position! I feel sorry when a media professional does not know his own professional limits and wrongly and abusively construes the functions he is granted! One can't do things at the TVR the way they used to be done at the Monitor of Iaşi, you can't make decisions on your own! And after that, have the Board Of Directors bear the risks and the consequences!

However, I think that in this particular case, it was someone else who caused the gauntlet to be thrown down. Perhaps it was the very gladiator who overestimated his forces, and through those ridiculous shows, led an institution to the edge of ruin.

So, my dear esteemed colleagues of Evenimentul Zilei: this wasn't a movie, nor an execution and it wasn't something out of the 50s either. Go see some more movies in the cinema, when you get time off from Cotroceni!"

• Claudiu Lucaci: I had recent meetings with Alexandru Lăzescu and Dan Radu to co-opt me in the plan to reorganize the news department

Journalist Claudiu Lucaci said: "For me it was obvious, from the beginning, that this was an operation to divert attention from the real issue, one intended to denigrate me. It has been common knowledge that for seven years, the former head of the News department has been waging an ongoing campaign to discredit me. Over the last two years, I've been illegally removed, and without any reason, from the News Department, and forced to work for another channel of the TVR. The entire TV network knew about this abuse, including the members of the Board of Directors.

On the topic of Dan Radu, I've known for a while that two directors of the TVR contacted several editorial offices, trying to manipulate perception. This scenario was confirmed on the next day, when I saw the articles published against me. With the exception of Mediafax, no media organization asked for my point of view or published it. Now that Mrs. Hossu-Longin has talked about the way things are, I think we should have an investigation from the Ethics and arbitrage commission. According to the internal regulations, any employee of the TVR which disseminates or supports public messages denigrating one of their colleagues is liable to be punished. I hope that president Lăzescu will publicly confirm the frequent talks which we had over the last two years, concerning my inclusion on the groups which were working to redefine the public mission of the TVR, to launch the Zebra Pay project, as well as the recent meetings with Dan Radu to co-opt me in the plan to reorganize the News Department".

Claudiu Lucaci was harshly attacked by several journalists employed by the Intact group on their blogs (Cătălin Tolontan, Victor Ciutacu, Mircea Badea).

• Victor Ponta: The TVR is politicized and is misinforming the population, but a new political change of staff is not the solution

The new prime minister, Victor Ponta recently said that the TVR is politically biased and is misinforming the population, while also having a flawed management. He claims that the solution is not to change one politically-appointed management team with another, but rather to use a European system, based on criteria of management performance.