Parliament votes new director of the Romanian public television

Romania's Parliament voted Irina Radu as the new president and general director of the Romanian public television TVR. Some 304 MPs voted ‘for’ and only eight voted ‘against’. 230 deputies and 82 senators were in the room for the vote, the quorum for the meeting being 271, reports local Agerpres. The Liberals didn’t want to take part in the vote and left the room before its start. The culture parliamentary committees heard Irina Radu on Monday, at the request of the Social Democratic Party - PSD, and gave their OK for her appointment as head of TVR. On the other hand, the committees rejected TVR managing board’s proposal, Monica Ghiurco. The National Liberal Party - PNL challenged the vote and accused PSD of breaking the public television’s rules that stipulate that the president-general manager should be elected at the TVR managing board’s proposal, reports local Mediafax. Irina Radu has been the interim general manager of TVR since late September 2015 when the Parliament rejected the television's 2014 activity report and dismissed the institution’s board of directors and general manager Stelian Tanase. Radu started as news anchor at TVR1 in the early ‘90s and became a member of the TVR’s board of directors between 1998 and 2002. She organized TVR’s Cerbul de Aur (The Golden Stag) festival for several years. She was also director of the TVR1 channel between 2004 and 2006 when she left the public institution to work with Turkish group Dogan Media, which had just launched its Kanal D channel in Romania. In 2010, she left Kanal D to work with Intact group, which owns the Antena 1 and Antena 3 TV stations, and in 2013, she returned to TVR as programs director. The Romanian public television is in a very bad financial situation. It recorded losses of over RON 24 million (EUR 5.3 mln) last year, according to the report submitted to the Parliament. The European Broadcasting Union decided to exclude Romania from this year’s Eurovision song contest because of TVR’s debts. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com