She continued , “A sovereign agency is overseeing the restructuring process and will be handling all its phases, from contracts with new media figures and advertising to the new policy of the channels.”

In her speech at the session, she said, “The Ministry is participating in a restructuring plan that should end in three years. The ERTU restructuring plan ensures financial restructuring, content development, quality improvement and the establishment of a fund for employees’ end of service compensations.”

Minister of Planning, Follow-up and Administrative Reform Hala Al-Saeed announced the plan to upgrade and restructure ERTU during a Feb. 18 hearing session of parliament's Media, Culture and Antiquities Committee.

Cairo is trying to save the ERTU from its debts, which are estimated at 30.8 billion pounds (around $1.7 billion). The union’s advertisers, its main source of income, have largely resorted to private channels due to ERTU’s drop in viewership.

CAIRO — The head of the news sector at the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU), Khaled Mehanna, told local media March 13 that the union — which is Egypt’s public broadcaster — is getting ready to upgrade its Nile News Channel as part of a comprehensive plan to upgrade and restructure the ERTU.

The minister did not name the sovereign agency supervising the ERTU restructuring plan. In Egypt, the term "sovereign agency" is used to describe security bodies affiliated with the presidency, such as the Administrative Control Authority and the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate.

The first phase of the ERTU restructuring plan began Feb. 26 with an upgrade to Egyptian Channel 1. Contracts were signed with media figures who are not currently part of the Egyptian state television staff, such as journalist Kheiri Ramadan and sports journalist Kareem Hassan Shahata. New programs were launched with an emphasis on high-quality broadcast technology.

Abdul Rahman Rashad, a member of the National Media Authority, which supervises the management of the ERTU, told Al-Monitor, “While the development plan started with developing Channel 1, the development of channel 2 and Nile News will begin in the next few days. Also, as the plan includes the Egyptian radio, Al-Aghani radio and Middle East radio will be also developed.”

Although the government has announced plans to restructure and upgrade the ERTU in past years, the current plan sparked controversy after Saeed revealed for the first time that a sovereign agency will be supervising the plan. Many of those involved in media questioned the reasons behind the state relying on such an institution in the media field and pointed to potential complications.

Journalist and media expert Hisham Qassem told Al-Monitor, “The plan to restructure and upgrade the ERTU will fail because the change is superficial. It is only a plan to change the programs and feature others with content similar to the programs of private channels. This plan has disregarded the identity of Egyptian television.”

Qassem described the decision to have a sovereign authority supervise the restructuring plan as "surprising."

"The administrative censorship authority affiliated with the presidency is usually the body supervising restructuring plans in the media field," he said.

He questioned what sovereign agencies have to do with media work. “Do they have experience in media management?" he asked, claiming that such involvement could amount to "infiltration" of security agencies in media work.

Qassem added, “The state’s resorting to a sovereign authority to oversee the ERTU restructuring plan is a continuation of the sovereign bodies’ meddling with media and their quest to directly control it.”

Rashad from the National Media Authority noted that while the public broadcaster was indeed cooperating with a sovereign agency to make these changes, he argued that this would help "overcome all [potential] obstacles in the development plan."

"Such a [restructuring] is a national task," he added.

Meanwhile, former dean of the Faculty of Media at Cairo University Hussan Imad Maccawi told Al-Monitor, “The restructuring plan shows an interest [on the part of the state] in the image, quality and 'decor' of state TV, but the content will not change. The new programs will not bring anything new or different from those on private channels.”

Maccawi added, “Egyptian state television is not supposed to compete with private channels, but it should offer distinctive content that has national rather than purely commercial goals.”

He argued that one of the main flaws of the restructuring plan is that the television employees are not involved in the plan and thus will not be excited about its success. He said, “They should be part of the restructuring process and the plan should boost and capitalize on their sense of belonging to their job.”

Maccawi also noted, “The supervision by a sovereign authority is new to the media creation field. Why resort to an authority that does not have enough experience in the field and that has other tasks?”

Writer and media trainer Yasser Abdul Aziz told Al-Monitor, “The restructuring plan should begin with fixing the Maspero building [the headquarters of ERTU] and resolving its internal problems rather than upgrading the channel and programs. The ERTU is drowning in debts, with 35,000 employees. These problems should be solved, and employees should have a hierarchy. A decision not to hire new employees should be taken also, and early retirement salaries should be encouraged by giving large financial rewards.”

Abdul Aziz continued, “The current plan focuses first on upgrading the TV channel without taking into consideration the situation of the employees and their need for training and without thinking of solving their problems. A restructuring plan should not focus on developing one channel without putting a comprehensive plan that starts with administrative structuring. The second phase includes a complete plan for all of ERTU’s 23 channels, in terms of content, image or channel merger.”

Abdul Aziz added, “As per the constitution, the Supreme Media Council should oversee the ERTU restructuring plan, not a sovereign agency, as Saeed claimed.”