Non-Political Content in the Bulgarian Media in 2011

The trends in the production of non-political content for the Bulgarian media in 2011 are not only not new, they are an element of long-term, global models of development. The current state of this problem in Bulgaria reflects the developments in the relationship between the media and politics, namely: an alarming symbiosis between the media and their subjects, and replacement of journalistic content with PR messages.

The classic understanding both of journalism and of PR defines ‘the interesting’ and ‘the important’ as the main factors for attracting media coverage. In practice, however, PR experts are relying less and less on the interesting in obtaining media coverage, and more on more on deals made on the basis of two main mechanisms: advertising budget and media partnership.

Advertising Budget and Content

The advertising budget factor means that the bigger the advertiser, the more exposure they will get in the media in which they advertise. The biggest advertisers on the market, which advertise in all media, can practically rely on considerable media support for their initiatives. For example, the failure of the Elevation Razlog 2011 music festival, a heavily advertised event, was commented on critically by few media outlets, while most of the media briefly reported the official version. The preparations for the festival, however, were given due coverage; the announcement of the stars that were supposed to take part in the festival and the news about them were readily used as occasions to promote the event. The festival was organized by one of the Bulgarian mobile phone operators, the top advertiser in the country. That is why we should not be surprised either by the initial brouhaha over the festival or by the silence that followed its failure.

Report about the Elevation Razlog 2011 music festival aired on bTV Novinite (bTV News), 24 June 2011. Source: btv.bg.

Bonus practices for loyal clients in the media in Bulgaria in 2011 transgressed the boundaries of editorial ethics. Bonus broadcasts, impressions or square centimeters were easily replaced with guaranteed content in the editorial and not in the paid sections of the media. This fusion of the advertising market and the media particularly affected the cultural industry as its products easily generate desired media content: books, films, music, fashion. This phenomenon was to be seen in the sphere of everything that can be called ‘lifestyle’: tourism, food and beverages, clubs and restaurants, and so on. The companies that hire for PR purposes people connected to particular media outlets (for example, stars from popular TV series or reality shows) could rely on additional media interest in 2011. One example of this were the Bulgarian gala premieres of dubbed films: television stations covered the event only if the voiceover was done by actors who worked for them.

Report about The Smurfs 3D aired on bTV’s breakfast programme Tazi Sutrin (This Morning), 10 August 2011, featuring the voiceover actors – comedians who work for bTV. Source: btv.bg.

‘Informal’ presence is often more effective than an obviously paid advertisement and is therefore desired by advertisers. This scheme works also in the so-called user media – social networking sites and video exchange platforms. Their advertising rate schedules offer bonuses consisting in the display of video clips and themes in prominent positions. In 2011, this enabled advertisers to place on the home page of popular video portals a video clip that would be viewed by tens of thousands of users in 24 hours. Very few of those users would realize that this was not part of the spontaneously liked and much viewed user uploads that are characteristic of those websites.

Some of the practices in the struggle for securing more and bigger advertising budgets in Bulgaria break the rules of fair play not only with respect to the public but also to rivals. This applies especially to television. In the professional community of the Bulgarian media and of interested companies’ PR departments working in close partnership with them, it is an open secret that certain levels of investment guarantee also levels of PR support. An additional ‘sale-boosting tool’ used by Bulgarian TV channels is providing airtime only in exchange for 100% of the company’s television budget for the promotion of a given product. In this way, the advertiser undertakes not to advertise the relevant product on another TV channel, which is a direct violation of competition law in Bulgaria. This practice, of course, is denied in public and de facto impossible to trace as many of the deals are kept off the books. Nevertheless, in 2011 it was made public and reached a sort of culmination, which was covered by some print and online media. On 20 June 2011, the news broke that Nova Television had approached the Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) about bTV’s Winter 2011 promotion. The bTV package offered very preferential prices and unusually many bonus broadcasts in the period between January and March 2011. Clients were entitled to the preferences only if they undertook not to advertise on other TV channels. Those who breached this condition had to pay a penalty.

Media Partnership and Content

The second main mechanism for ensuring media coverage of non-political content is media partnership. When a given content is of interest to the media and they are inclined to publish or broadcast it because it will increase demand for them, the partnership principle is ‘clean’ for both parties concerned, especially in the case of developing stories and topics that are not one-off. This trend was especially clear throughout 2011 and could be seen in the case of many cultural events and campaigns of partner media. It must be noted that by virtue of media barters the Bulgarian public was regularly exposed also to self-referential content in 2011.

As a rule, partner initiatives are conducted by marketing departments whose goal is to make their products, including their media products, more salable. The partner company supplies that which is interesting for viewing/listening/reading, provides information to its partner media preferentially or exclusively depending on the parameters of their partnership, and includes the logo of the relevant media outlet in its advertising materials. Thus, the media capitalize their editorial space even without direct payment. A media partnership usually includes a media plan whose cost is not paid but which shows the level of the provided media support and a certain number of materials negotiated in advance. Irrespective of the level of ‘interestingness’ of the occasion for media partnership, outside of the latter each of those materials would be the subject of a separate, often unsuccessful, PR battle. In addition, media partnerships can circumvent legal as well as internal regulations about the place of editorial and paid advertising content. In the case of television, for example, inclusion at the beginning of a commercial break is such a ‘liminal’ promotional tool – its use could be seen in many advertising campaigns in 2011.

All this turned the people from media marketing departments into gatekeepers according to the classic terminology of media studies – a role which, as a rule, is assigned to journalists and editors. By virtue of media partnership, the interest of the Bulgarian media in 2011 was regularly shifted onto pre-negotiated topics and activities of business partners at the expense of free citizen initiatives.

Conclusion

To summarize, non-political content in the Bulgarian media is increasingly subject to business agreements. The ways it is produced call into question free competition in Bulgaria, and 2011 even brought a conflict between the two most popular TV channels, bTV and Nova Television, and a complaint to the CPC. In 2011 media marketing became the main starting point for choice of content in the spheres outside politics and the economy. Along with all other apprehensions about the state of the relationship between media and politics, this raised additional suspicions about the mechanisms by which the media picture of public life is created in Bulgaria.