Ismira Lutfia and Farouk Arnaz
JAKARTA: The national broadcasting regulator says it will appeal a ruling to cancel the temporary suspension of infotainment program Silet (“Razor”) for its controversial coverage of the Mount Merapi eruptions.
On Wednesday, the State Administrative Court revoked the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission’s (KPI) temporary suspension of Silet, which triggered panic in November when it reported the volcano was expected to erupt with even greater intensity.
The KPI ordered private television station RCTI to take the show off the air until after Merapi’s alert status had been downgraded.
However, RCTI proceeded to broadcast a new infotainment program called Intens to fill in Silet’s 11 am time slot. While the program had a different name and presenter, it had a similar format with its predecessor.
On November 17, the KPI filed a police report against the station, seeking to temporarily revoke the broadcaster’s licence for allegedly violating the suspension order.
On November 29, RCTI took the case to the State Administrative Court, requesting the court revoke the suspension imposed by the KPI.
After four months of hearings, the court on Wednesday ruled in favor of RCTI, citing procedural errors in the commission’s decision to impose a suspension.
Ezki Suyanto, from the KPI, said the commission would appeal the ruling.
“[The decision] is weird because we went through all the required procedures in accordance with the programming standards and broadcasting code of conduct before we agreed to issue the sanction,” she said.
But according to Ezki, the judges ruled that the content of Silet’s program on November 7 did not violate the programming standards or broadcasting code of conduct, known as the P3SPS.
“They don’t have the authority to evaluate the show’s content since it falls under our authority,” she said.
Silet returned to RCTI on February 25, featuring the same presenter, Fenny Rose. It currently airs daily at 5:30 pm, right after the station’s popular evening news program.
“If we were to revoke the suspension, that means Silet would be exonerated of ethics violations in its Merapi coverage,” Ezki said.
“But all nine KPI commissioners at the time agreed that it had indeed breached the broadcasting conduct.”
Separately, National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said on Thursday that the police probe of RCTI had been dropped.
He said police had consulted with the Press Council and media experts, and had concluded there was no evidence to make a case against RCTI under the Broadcasting Law.
Boy said Silet was considered a news show, and hence any dispute related to it should be resolved under the Press Law, not through filing a criminal complaint. - Jakarta Globe/Pacific Media Watch
Ismira Lutfia
