The commercialisation of news and editorial freedom: a study of Buletin Utama TV3

This qualitative study is focusing on the commercialisation of news in Buletin Utama, TV3. Researcher concerned is to investigate how to balance the news reporting based on the journalism principle in combine with the paid news content to serve public interest. Do the media practitioners concern and realise that this may cause to certain implications to the newsroom culture and news credibility. Therefore, this study is to understand several research questions as per below query: (i)To what extent has the commercialisation of news items duration in Buletin Utama affected the space of editorial content?(ii)Who are the advertisers that had consume the commercialisation of news duration in place of editorial content in Buletin Utama?(iii) Are there any restraint forces for editors of Buletin Utama in maintaining editorial independence from the providers of financial support?(iv)How does Buletin Utama manage a creative negotiation to ensure credibility of news stay intact and at the same time serve the stake holders and to ensure survival in the 21st century? Firstly, the study focused on the durations of the commercialization of news items in Buletin Utama. By using content analysis, the researcher collected the data from the three years of Buletin Utama. The findings showed that there are 6,075 commercialization of news in Buletin Utama for the year 2007, 2008 and 2010. Data was analysed according to ‘items’, ‘category of business’ and ‘sector of business’ for the three years in study. The ‘items’ are the news items that the advertisers bought to be on aired on Buletin Utama. The type of the commercialisation news items are ‘live-read’, ‘TVC’, ‘advertorial’ and ‘promo’. For the third research question the researcher referred to the in-depth interview with 15 respondents from the News and Current Affairs of TV3. The researcher had identified the themes for the 3rd research question, i) advertorial as a source of financial for TV3, ii) Buletin Utama credibility at stake iii) high ratings, iv) clients trust, v) content value decides, vi) angle of the news, vii) client do not dictate, viii) technical error ix) fulfilling the need of client. From these themes, the researcher had deduced the themes into two important discovery; i) revenue is not everything, credibility rules, ii) editorial independence intact. Lastly on the 4th researcher question, from the respondents, the researcher found 10 themes from the respondents to answer the 4th research question, i) KPI Target, ii) Making profit from NCA, iii) content benefits everybody, iv) suitable for Buletin Utama,, v) product endorsement, vi) news line-up, vii) management pressure, viii) duration, ix) news value and x) hard news comes first. From the 10 themes deduced to 2 important discoveries to answer 4th research question; i) public interest served well, ii) balanced world.