In Israel, the public has access to a unique television service that broadcasts educational material straight into the homes of citizens. Israel Educational Television (IETV) is similar to America’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) because they are both non-profit public broadcasters that are devoted to educational and quality programming. In 1966, IETV was incorporated into the structure of television as we know it, and was considered to be Israel’s “original television station.” Within the first two years of its inception, it was sharing a television channel alongside the Israeli Broadcasting Authority, which you can learn about in my previous blog post.
The television service was created to distribute school-orientated, enriching and cultural programs to the general public. Instead of receiving funding from the public through taxes on television sets, like the Israeli Broadcasting Authority, IETV’s funding is provided by the Ministry of Education and Culture. An example television series that was broadcasted for school-aged viewers was Chemistry for Beginners. The intent of showing videos such as this is to extend information on important topics outside of the curriculum taught in class. This core value of the IETV has fluctuated throughout the years and in the 1980s, the original concept behind the station started to change.
In the 80s, the IETV started to move away from solely broadcasting educational material and started broadcasting hard and soft news programs. This included content that contained more entertainment-, or action-focused and was geared mainly toward adults. Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar recognized this problem and revamped the service away from non-educational programming. He applied tighter controls on the material being distributed, especially during the daytime when children were likely to be watching.
As of 2012, IETV is recorded to have over 200 hours of weekly programming. The three main channels that the service is broadcast over includes Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 23. Additionally, during the same year, the Knesset Economics Committee made IETV available to all Israelis. Previously one had to pay for a subscription, however it was added to the public access digital TV broadcasting system, which makes it available to everyone.
Although the Israeli Broadcasting Authority is facing an unsure future, the Israel Educational Television should remain unharmed. The benefit of broadcasting educational content is unequaled in the Middle East because the Israel puts a strong value on schooling.
http://www.moc.gov.il/sip_storage/FILES/5/605.pdf
http://www.culture.org.il/directory/viewItem.asp?cat=8&subcat=8.1&idNum=8404
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/electronic_media.html
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/That-other-channel-Israel-Educational-Television
