In September, hundreds of people entering the battle for public popularity will get, maybe for the first time in their entire lives, a chance to enter the TV house and spend three vital minutes in front of cameras.
ERR to grant three minutes per candidate
25th June 2013, 13:16
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Namely, Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) offers all those in «lists», as well as individual candidates, the opportunity to take three minutes to introduce themselves, their stands and their programs.
«This is a bold and a revolutionary endeavour,» claimed the chairman of ERR board Margus Allikmaa. «Candidates may come from any county – we will give them three minutes of camera time. The voters will be able to assess the candidates’ communications skills, ability to be on air, eloquence and views, providing a basis for elections.»
Tirades not aired
Camera time may not be used to revile other candidates – in that case, the clip will not be aired. Obscenities and indecent incitements will also be cut short. ERR will be asking the candidates to answer the question: what is tour goal – what do you wish to do different or better?
«The editors will have to take responsibility, it cannot be allowed that people will say whatever they will. That will definitely not happen,» promised Mr Allikmaa.
The candidate can use the summer to gather their thoughts and practice performing – to appear, nice and tidy, in the TV house in the fall, stand in line for their 3 minutes and put on their best act – Eurovision style.
People from South-Estonia are welcome in the ERR Tartu studio. The clips will be aired over ETV 2, in daytime. Currently, these time slots are mostly used for covering news from ERR portal. All political clips will be archived for future views.
For the first time, ERR offers local governments the opportunity to record their local elections debate and send it to ERR, the latter placing it on its elections portal.
«The debate will be placed in the portal if it is viewable, if all main parties are included, if it is not a pseudo debate with two politicians either lauding or disparaging each other, nonstop. We will help publish the sensible debates,» said Mr Allikmaa. «We hope we can be a little more of a benefit to the viewers than before. The goal being simple: providing the voters a better overview of the candidates and their promises.»
Five big debates
In the fall, the familiar half-hour elections debates are in store, the first one featuring experts discussing the main tasks faced by local governments and the political parties pre-elections promises.
Thereafter, four programs will tackle the four major cities: Narva, Tartu, Pärnu, Tallinn. From each, six guests are expected – the candidates for mayors.
«We do not desire nor is it possible to have more candidates in the programmes, as the quality would go down and it simply would not work,» said Mr Allikmaa. «We will take the representatives of the six major lists, the candidates for mayors, assuming they will all have a decent elections platform.»
For the first time, ETV will translate all elections programmes into Russian and provide repeat views. In the cases of Tallinn and Narva, this is unavoidable, but now translations are provided for all programmes.
While, earlier, the top debate has been aired on Saturday, on the elections day eve, then now, for the sake of the translations, the Tallinn mayor candidates gather at TV house on Wednesday, the programme being repeated on Thursday with the translation provided.
Mr Allikmaa promises a surprise from ERR for Saturday night.
Three minutes of fame
• ERR records the addresses on September 16th to October 18th, during 25 working days, with up to 50 video clips per work day.
• The clips will be recorded a county/ local government at a time.
• Only one candidate per local government may represent each political party and election coalition list.
• For the recording, candidates need to appear at ERR studio in Tallinn (Gonsiori St 27) or Tartu (Riia St 24) minimum 15 minutes ahead of time.
• The clips will be aired in the same workday of the workday after, in special elections portals of ETV and ERR.
• The candidates are given three minutes, after that the camera is switched off.
• The recording crew reserves the right to delete clips by candidates using obscenities, instigating hostility or hatred, or directly defaming opposition candidates.
• The programme crew will counsel and advise candidates prior to recording.
• The clips will start by introduction of the candidates’ names and the political parties/ election coalition represented.
• The addresses will have to centre around the candidate’s standpoints, issues to be advanced or protected as prospective member of a local council.