Negotiating Democracy: Media Transformations in Emerging Democracies

11. First Green Is Always Gold: An Examination of the First Private National Channel in Bulgaria

INTRODUCTION THE GROWTH OF COMMUNICATION systems in modern capitalist societies has been inextricably linked to both the rise of mass democracy and the growth of mass consumption. However, from the very beginning, commentators of a variety of political and cultural hues have pointed out the contradictory relations between consumerism as the foundation of capitalist economies and citizenship as the foundation of democratic societies. A society’s system of communication, as the major vehicle for advertising and the central forum for organizing political discourse, is caught in the center of this tension (Murdock , 1992). This statement is particularly accurate with regard to the developments and processes that the countries of Eastern Europe have been experiencing since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the former Communist bloc, the mass media have been recognized as a central part of the political, economic, and social transformations that brought about the end of the cold war. With the end of the economic and ideological divide between the East and West, the former Soviet nations launched a trip to self-discovery in search of a new, postCommunist cultural and political identity. As the most influential vehicle of 219 ELEVEN First Green Is Always Gold An Examination of the First Private National Channel in Bulgaria ELZA IBROSCHEVA and MARIA RAICHEVA-STOVER public opinion and social sentiments, the mass media became the public forum for this search. Now that the Berlin Wall is long demolished and all Eastern European nations are undergoing a process of cultural redefinition, it is interesting to examine the post-Communist developments in the cultural sphere and particularly in the mass media. As a conduit of these developments, the mass media in Eastern Europe find themselves under the pressure of a conjuncture of the forces of globalization. In this spirit, with the beginning of the new millennium , Bulgaria, the former Communist nation often referred to as the Soviet Union’s most loyal satellite nation, opened a new page in its media history . After nearly 50 years of state-controlled, closely monitored, and ideologically manipulated television, the Bulgarian government decided to open the national air, previously exclusively reserved for the state-owned and operated television channels, to foreign media companies. As a result, the first private television channel, Balkan Television (bTV), was launched and was officially listed as “a News Corporation company.” The monopoly of Bulgarian National Television (BNT) was brought to an end, and its politicizing and socializing role was about to change drastically, simultaneously transforming the entire media landscape in Bulgaria. This chapter uses a globalization framework to examine the cultural effects of foreign capital on Bulgaria’s broadcasting system. Using bTV as a case study, this chapter will critically examine the development and growth of the first foreign commercial broadcaster in a post-Communist state to show how the initial strong resistance to a commercially driven programming scheme was quickly superceded by a hearty espousal of every single aspect of Western-type programming. Such developments have important consequences not only in terms of program quality and availability of choice but also in terms of far-reaching political, economic, and cultural influences. The need for such an investigation is pressing given the lack of any scholarly research about globalization influences in Bulgaria. The ultimate purpose of this chapter, however, is to address and perhaps further explicate a question stated by Bakardjieva (1995): “Will the emergence of new, independent media channels fulfill the expectations for a democratic public debate on issues critical to society, . . . or will they ‘Dallasify’ and drown to death any attempts at critical civic thinking and participation?” (p. 41). The discussion of such media trends is critical as it demonstrates the complex processes that nations such as Bulgaria undergo in assessing their success in building Western -type democracy while at the same time maintaining their indigenous cultural identity. The first part of the chapter offers a brief discussion of the research methods used and a literature review of globalization of culture. The study next presents an overview of the globalization literature on Eastern Europe and an overview of important historical developments in Bulgarian broadcasting.The ELZA IBROSCHEVA AND MARIA RAICHEVA-STOVER 220 events around the creation of bTV, its first year on the air, and its subsequent success occupy the central the part of the chapter. The last part offers a discussion of bTV’s formula for success and some concluding remarks with regard to its...